Questions tagged [drilling]

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Are rocks extracted from deep drilling, brittle due to pore pressure?

When a saturated rock sample is rapidly extracted from a place with high water pressure, as happens in oil drilling or deep mining, the water is trapped inside the rock at high pressure, trying to ...
kefip's user avatar
  • 31
1 vote
2 answers
100 views

Formation of steam underground

In the process of drilling holes in the ground, if water was introduced, could it reach equilibrium vapor pressure, flash to steam and expel drill bit, drilling rod, and other debris up and out of the ...
Kenneth Vaughan's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
3k views

If people aim to reach the mantle, why don't they just use volcano craters?

Once in a while aspiring people aim to drill through the Earth's crust to reach the mantle, but why do they want that when the mantle is actually on or very close to the surface in volcano craters? ...
Giovanni's user avatar
  • 305
1 vote
1 answer
78 views

Why should wellbores be supported by pressure, but not mine tunnels?

I recently read about safe mud window - it states that the mud pressure in a wellbore should be high enough to prevent well collapse, and should not exceed the formation's fracture pressure. But ...
user2879275's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
233 views

What would people drilling through Mount Everest find?

I am interested in knowing what kind of fossils we would find if we were to drill horizontally through the mountain and what we would find if we were to drill vertically. Would we find anything ...
Writer-at-large's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
147 views

Is VLF-EM scanning for fractures a valid way to find groundwater for a well?

I posted this question on Engineering Stack Exchange as well. I'm not sure if here or there is the better place. There is no agriculture stack exchange (much as I wish there was) so I am posting there ...
Diogenes Creosote's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
2k views

What's the official reason why it became so hot in the Kola borehole?

The Kola drill went 'only' a third the way to the mantle, so its deepest point was still closer to the surface than to the mantle. Why did the drillers experience 180 °C when so deep, where did that ...
Greenhorn's user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
4k views

If the Kola Superdeep Borehole were opened today, what would come out of it?

The BBC News article The Deepest Hole we have Ever dug says: This is the Kola Superdeep Borehole, the deepest man made hole on Earth and deepest artificial point on Earth. The 40,230ft-deep (12.2km) ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 6,994
1 vote
0 answers
348 views

How much hydrogen can be extracted from the deep continental crust?

Far below the earth's surface, hydrogen gas is continuously produced through serpentinization. At least some fraction of this hydrogen remains trapped in the deep continental crust; indeed, Soviet ...
Thorondor's user avatar
  • 111
0 votes
1 answer
140 views

Could further oil drilling remove an insulation layer of the Earth cores heat? [duplicate]

Putting aside burning fossil fuels, what are the consequences of another 100 years of drilling deeper and deeper to extract oil reserves globally? Would this significant extraction remove an ...
Chris's user avatar
  • 1
7 votes
1 answer
912 views

How straight is the Kola superdeep borehole?

The legendary Kola superdeep borehole is about 12 km deep. To achieve such depth, a major difficulty is to make sure the borehole is vertical straight. Intuitively, when the borehole is deep enough, ...
S. Kohn's user avatar
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18 votes
5 answers
4k views

Why aren't seismic stations installed very deep underground so as to pre-warn from earthquakes?

The velocity of p-waves emanating from earthquakes is in the range of 5-8 km/s (link)--let's assume it is 5 km/s. The earthquake depth is up to hundreds of kms deep underground (link)--let's assume it ...
student1's user avatar
  • 291
8 votes
4 answers
7k views

Can we reduce the scale of volcanic eruptions by drilling some canals or bombing some holes in the crater?

As we know, when large scale volcanic eruptions occurs, large amounts of ashes and lava rushed out at short time, is it possible to drill some canels or bomb some holes in the crater so that the gas ...
Gstestso's user avatar
  • 1,369
2 votes
1 answer
219 views

Volcano magma chamber [duplicate]

If I use a really big drill and drill all the way down to a magma chamber what exactly would happen? From what I understand we cant drill to a Magma Chamber because it is really hot, but I have a ...
Lucian09474's user avatar
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10 votes
3 answers
608 views

Is it feasible to use depleted oil wells for geothermal production?

There is an oil field outside my hometown. I wonder if it is feasible to use the same oil wells for geothermal production after oil production rate drops below profitable point.
George Chen's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
16k views

Hypothetically, what would happen to the earth if a large hole was drilled through the center?

This may be a slightly unusual question. I know it wouldn't be possible, but what would the short and long term effects be, if a large (say, 1 mile diameter) round hole appeared, and went straight ...
J. Musser's user avatar
  • 399
13 votes
1 answer
593 views

What is caesium-137 used for in fracking?

Caesium-137 is used in the fracking process. What is it used for?
naught101's user avatar
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14 votes
4 answers
11k views

Can we really travel through earth's core?

Inspired by the movie, "The Core". Can we really travel through earth's core? I will provide 2 sub questions: Is there any substance that can resist the heat of earth's core? Between the crust and ...
Poomrokc The 3years's user avatar
15 votes
2 answers
672 views

How does geothermal heating work?

I have heard that geothermal heating is a way of generating energy from the temperature difference between the inner layers of the Earth and the Earth's crust. How is it possible to extract this ...
Kenshin's user avatar
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