Although Lone Star did not find what they were looking for, it remained the deepest hole on the planet for another five years. Then in 1979, one of Kola’s holes, christened SG-3, smashed the record and by 1983, the hole, which was nine inches wide, also went down an impressive 39,000 feet into the Earth. Once this milestone was reached, researchers on the Kola Peninsula stopped working on the hole for 12 months so that people could visit the fascinating site. However, when they went back to work the following year, a technical problem forced them to stop drilling.
