Have you ever been digging a hole on the beach and wondered how deep you could go? Well some scientists had the same idea, so they decided to try it for real!

We find out all about it in this week’s Fun Kids Science Weekly podcast!

What is the Kola Superdeep Borehole?

The Kola Superdeep Borehole is a hole dug by scientists. The idea was to see just how deep they could dig into the earth’s crust and see what they could find when they did. They used big drills to dig the holes.

What is a borehole?

A borehole is a hole that comes off a main big hole. You can think of them a little bit like a tree branch, you have one main branch (the main hole) and then lots of smaller branches that come off that (the boreholes).

Where is the Kola Superdeep Borehole?

It’s in the Kola Peninsula which is in the far northwest of Russia.

How deep does it go?

The deepest borehole is called SG-3, it’s 9 inches wide and 7.5 miles deep! It’s so deep that at the 7.5 miles the temperature was 180°C! That’s as hot as the oven used to cook your dinner!

When did they dig the hole?

They began drilling in 1970 and stopped in 1995.

Why did they stop digging?

They stopped because it got too hot for the drill so they had to stop.

What did they find in the hole?

Scientists mostly found fossils. They found some from 2 billion years ago and they were in really good condition! This meant that scientists could use them to figure out what was happening on earth all that time ago.

Sounds cool, can I see it?

Nope, the hole was covered up so you can’t have a peak down the hole. All you can see is the cover.

I want to know more!

Well you can find out loads more in the latest episode of the Fun Kids Science Weekly podcast! Dan is also talking to Lucy Hawking, Stephen Hawking’s daughter, all about the universe and her new book ‘Unlocking The Universe’.

The Fun Kids Science Weekly podcast is released every Saturday and is packed full of wicked science stories, facts, and things to make you go ‘wow!’

You can get the Fun Kids Science Weekly Podcast for free on Google and Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.

Subscribe, so you get new shows delivered to your phone every week automatically.

You can also get the Fun Kids Science Weekly podcast in the free Fun Kids app, online at FunKidsLive.com