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  • So at some point in their lives, nearly everybody has wanted to dig a hole down to the center of the Earth.

  • The only problem is, nobody ever has actually dug a hole down that far.

  • This leads us to the question that this video is all about:

  • If humanity decided that digging a hole was the #1 objective of our species,

  • then how deep down could we actually dig with modern-day technology?

  • Let's say that we start somewhere on the Earth's surface and just start digging from there-

  • -not too far down at 1.8 meters

  • and we arrive at the standard grave depth in Western culture.

  • So if you are afraid of zombies, this is how far down they'll be coming from.

  • 4 meters down and we arrive at the depth that pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered at.

  • A little further, at six meters below the surface,

  • we've reached the maximum depth that metal detectors can pick up signals from.

  • At 12 meters, we can find the deepest burrows dug by animals - the Nile crocodile.

  • A little further down at 20 metres and we arrive at the depth of the Paris Catacombs beneath the city of Paris -

  • - a tomb that holds the remains of over 6 million people.

  • Double that distance to 40 meters down and we can see the deepest swimming pool in the world.

  • If you drained this pool and jumped into it from the top,

  • it would take nearly 3 seconds before you would hit the bottom.

  • 100 meters down is the usual distance that governments bury their nuclear waste at,

  • and just beneath that at 105.5 meters down is the deepest metro station in the world, located in Kiev.

  • Moving on to 122 meters down and we see the deepest known point that a plant's roots have ever reached-

  • - a fig tree in South Africa.

  • 220 meters down and we arrive at the deepest river in the world - the Congo River in Africa.

  • Beyond that at 240 meters,

  • you can ride through the deepest railway tunnel in the world that connects the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido.

  • But at 287 metres down, you can drive through the deepest road tunnel in the world in Norway

  • 305 meters down and you would still be vulnerable to the B82 Earth-penetrating nuclear warhead

  • which can destroy structures up to this depth beneath the surface.

  • Incredibly though at 392 meters, we arrive at the deepest well and possibly deepest hole ever dug by hand.

  • This is the Woodingdean Water Well in the UK and it was dug all the way back in 1862.

  • At 603 meters down,we arrived at something terrifying-

  • - the deepest vertical drop inside of a cave.

  • If you were unfortunate enough to be in this cave and fall down this hole,

  • the fall would be higher up than falling from the top of the One World Trade Center in New York

  • and the fall would take you over 11 seconds before hitting the bottom.

  • Even further down though at 700 meters is where the Chilean miners were trapped at for 69 days back in 2010.

  • 970 meters down is the deepest hole ever dug that still has an open sky above it -

  • - the Bingham Canyon open pit mine in Utah.

  • This pit is so deep that you could place the tallest building in the entire world in the center

  • and still have over 100 more meters to the surface.

  • Much further down at 1,410 meters though

  • is where the deepest concert ever held happened by the band, 'Agonizer' in Finland

  • 1642 meters down is the depth of the deepest lake on Earth-

  • - Lake Baikal in Russia,

  • and 1857 meters down is the deepest part of the Grand Canyon.

  • The deepest known cave on Earth is located 2,197 meters beneath the surface in Georgia

  • but the deepest hole that you could actually fall into goes

  • waaaaay

  • deeper than even this-

  • - All the way down at 3,132 meters is the bottom of the Moab Khotsong mineshaft in South Africa.

  • Taking the elevator takes 4 1/2 minutes to reach the bottom

  • but if you fell into it from the top,

  • it would take you 25 entire seconds for you to hit the bottom and think about what you've just done-

  • - long enough to receive and miss an entire phone call.

  • Even further down at 3,600 meters is the deepest point that a multicellular organism has been found alive-

  • - this freaky looking worm.

  • But human beings themselves have been even deeper than this.

  • 4,000 meters down is the deepest part of the deepest mine on Earth, also located in South Africa.

  • The trip from the surface down to the bottom takes over an hour to complete

  • and the temperature at the bottom can reach a sweltering 66 degrees Celsius.

  • 6000 meters is the average depth of the oceanic crust beneath the ocean floor.

  • Waaaaay

  • down at 8,848 meters is the height of Mount Everest if it were placed underground instead

  • 10,994 meters down is the bottom of the Marianas Trench, which is the deepest part of the ocean.

  • I already covered the depth of the ocean in another video

  • but unbelievably humans have actually dug down significantly deeper than even this.

  • For reference about what's next,

  • 11887 meters is the average altitude that a commercial airliner flies at,

  • but deeper than that at 12,262 meters is the depth of the Kola Superdeep Borehole:

  • A project where the Soviet Union attempted to drill all the way through the Earth's crust.

  • They only reached a third of the way there though because the temperature at this depth reached 180 degrees Celsius,

  • which was too hot for the drill to continue operating any further.

  • The hole is also only 23 centimeters wide, so luckily you can't accidentally fall into it.

  • If you dropped a quarter down the shaft though, it would take about 50 seconds before it hit the bottom.

  • Recently, however, this depth has been surpassed by the Z44-Chavyo oil and gas well

  • which has drilled down to a depth of 12,376 meters -

  • - that's the equivalent of stacking 15 Burj Khalifas on top of each other

  • and currently represents the deepest hole that humanity has ever dug.

  • The crust, however, can extend down to 70,000 meters below the Earth's surface

  • and the planets center is located 6,731

  • kilooometers

  • down.

  • If the surface of the Earth is Lisbon, Portugal and the planet's center is Astana, Kazakhstan,

  • then humanity so far has just ventured

  • this

  • tiny

  • insignificant

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  • You can visit my Patreon by clicking here if you'd like to directly support the channel and vote on future video topics

  • And I hope to see you next Friday for another new video then.

So at some point in their lives, nearly everybody has wanted to dig a hole down to the center of the Earth.

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