Page 20 - Exotic | April 2025

Yes, holes. I'm not talking about the kind people fuck, but I guess if you're bold enough, you could give it a go. No, I'm talking this time, on the deepest reaches of our planet. Places that go so far down, you would, lacking scientific instruments, just be like, "damn." While obviously, dig- ging pits, burrows, and holes has long been a practical necessity in our existence as a species, some people went way nuts with this, and also, Mother Nature has, er, "blessed" us humans with some perplex- ing depths as well—some which can even seem unnatural, despite being the craft of natural forces.
Ever dug a hole? I know I have, and it's hard work, but my parents were just hap- py I wasn't playing Double Dragon and was doing something active. That said, I had to fill that 5-foot-deep hole in again when they decided that my playing Dou- ble Dragon was less of an inconvenience to the backyard. But some of these deep spots would take me a thousand lifetimes to recreate.
Now, figuring out measures of depth re- quires a baseline. When we talk height, we use Mount Everest as that baseline. Tallest mountain in the world and all that shit, at 5.5 miles high. But what about the low- est? People say it's the Mariana Trench—a vast oceanic feature in the western Pacific Ocean. It's close enough to Japan that you could probably get sushi delivered, but they'd have to have a delivery vehi- cle capable of going 7 miles underwater and withstanding 1,000 atmospheres of pressure, which, if you can't fathom (har har) how much pressure that exactly is, well, it's 1,000 times the pressure of just standing around on dry land, so it would squish you like a tomato full of intestines
if you were suddenly transported there. If you find a genie, do not wish to go down there. Also, I will not be covering stuff underwater. I am discussing things you could hypothetically go visit without a special submarine.
Let's do our deep dive. Not ranked in any particular order.
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Veryovkina Cave
Discovered in 1968 in Georgia (no, not the one with the peaches, the Slavic na- tion), Veryovkina Cave is an astounding 1.2 miles deep and exists high into the Caucasus mountains. Some intrepid Rus- sians went down there shortly after it was found. How do you not notice a giant cave in your country, anyhow? The Russians made it to the bottom only as recently as 2018. The Georgians were apparently like, "fuck that, we'll let the neighbors go down there first and get back to us."
The cave was formed over millions of years by glacial erosion and has brought very daring people from all over the world who wish to plumb its depths. One of them, a man named Sergei Koneev, went to tackle it himself in 2020, got stuck, and died of hypothermia, as the average tem- perature down there is near freezing.
Mponeng Gold Mine
Located in scenic South Africa, the Mpo- neng Gold Mine is 2.5 miles below sea level, making it the world's deepest mine. It used to go by the charming name of "Western Deep Levels No. 1 Shaft." Shaft! Can ya dig it?
Since operations began in 1986, it has produced substantial levels of gold, with over 8.5 tons of gold mined in 2023, the last year we have data for alone. It's still in operation and has no plans on giving up until 2029, as there was an estimated 1,300 tons of gold in there when they started, and they're gonna take every last bit of it.
Unlike Veryovkina Cave, this one gets ridiculously hot, with miners having to suffer through temperatures up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. They were kinda pissed off about that and went on strike because fuck that noise. Eventually, they started pumping an ice slurry to cool it down to a mere 86 degrees and sealing off excavated areas with concrete to help insulate it better. Some 5,400 tons of rock are removed every damn day. Can you imagine? "Time to go to work," then travel 2.5 miles down a hot mineshaft, and start hitting rocks with a hammer? Hard pass.