One of the first visitors to Jupiter's icy moon of Europa could be a tiny submarine barely larger than two soda cans. The small craft might help strike the right balance between cost and capability for a robotic mission to ...
Space Exploration
Jun 11, 2013
3
0
What spreads the sea floors and moves the continents? What melts iron in the outer core and enables the Earth's magnetic field? Heat. Geologists have used temperature measurements from more than 20,000 boreholes around the ...
General Physics
Jul 17, 2011
50
0
The greatest climate change the world has seen in the last 100,000 years was the transition from the ice age to the warm interglacial period. New research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen indicates ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 23, 2012
33
0
(Phys.org)—Researchers with Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute have announced that they have successfully retrieved a clean ice core sample from Lake Vostok in Antarctica. The sample, taken from a bore hole ...
The Amazon River originated as a transcontinental river around 11 million years ago and took its present shape approximately 2.4 million years ago. These are the most significant results of a study on two boreholes drilled ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 7, 2009
1
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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was given a water sample Friday taken from a pristine lake hidden under Antarctic ice for over a million years, after Russian scientists drilled down to its surface.
Earth Sciences
Feb 10, 2012
2
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When a team of scientists drilling near an Icelandic volcano hit magma in 2009, they had to abandon their planned experiments on geothermal energy. But the mishap could point the way to an alternative source of geothermal ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 17, 2011
4
1
Experts in quantum cold-atom sensors are delving deep underground in a new project aimed at harnessing quantum gravity sensing technology in harsh underground borehole environments.
Quantum Physics
Aug 10, 2020
0
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Permafrost dating from the end of the last Ice Age around 13,000 years ago recently discovered in Poland could prove an invaluable tool in gauging global warming, Polish geologists said on Friday.
Earth Sciences
Aug 6, 2010
11
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The U.S. Geological Survey turned to Sandia National Laboratories for help when the earth opened up last month near Bayou Corne, La.
Earth Sciences
Sep 27, 2012
0
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A borehole is the generalized term for any narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water or other liquid (such as petroleum) or gases (such as natural gas), as part of a geotechnical investigation, environmental site assessment, mineral exploration, temperature measurement or as a pilot hole for installing piers or underground utilities.
Engineers and environmental consultants use the term to collectively describe all of the various types of holes drilled as part of a geotechnical investigation or environmental site assessment (a so-called Phase II ESA). This includes holes advanced to collect soil samples, water samples or rock cores, to advance in situ sampling equipment, or to install monitoring wells or piezometers. Samples collected from boreholes are often tested in a laboratory to determine their physical properties, or to assess levels of various chemical constituents or contaminants.
Typically, a borehole used as a water well is completed by installing a vertical pipe (casing) and well screen to keep the borehole from caving. This also helps prevent surface contaminants from entering the borehole and protects any installed pump from drawing in sand and sediment. Oil and natural gas wells are completed in a similar, albeit usually more complex, manner.
The world’s deepest borehole is the Odoptu OP-11 well on Sakhalin which reached a measured total depth of 12,345 m (40,502 ft) and a horizontal displacement of 11,475 m (37,648 ft). Exxon Neftegas Limited completed the well in 60 days.
As detailed in proxy (climate), borehole temperature measurements at a series of different depths can be effectively "inverted" (a mathematical formula to solve a matrix equation) to help estimate historic surface temperatures.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
