10 Largest Bottomless Holes On Earth

Well we may have buildings that tower over us, trees that reach for the skies and vast plains there's still nothing like a giant crater in the earth to make you feel small. From manmade pits to nature's own design here are 10 of the deepest holes on earth.

1- Darwaza gasps craters

Otherwise known as the door to hell the Darwaza gas crater in Turkmenistan was created by accident. In the 1950s the former Soviet Union was drilling for natural gas when the rigs fell into an underground cavern. The crater is 65 feet deep and roughly 196 feet across. The escaping gas was set alight shortly after the incident and has been burning ever since. The smell of burning sulfur can be detected for quite some distance and becomes overbearing near the edge of the smoldering crater.

2- Bingham Canyon Mine

At 3937 feet deep and 13,000 123 feet wide the Bingham Canyon Mine in the ochre mountains of Utah is definitely one of the largest man-made holes in the world. The copper mine has been in operation since 1906 and is one of the most productive mines of its kind, yielding more than 17 million tons of copper since 2004. There is also them 715 tons of gold, 5,900 tons of silver and 850 million pounds of molybdenum. Talk about impressive! The entire pit covers roughly 1900 acres and it is still used today.

3- Monticello dam drain hole

Located in Napa County, California the Monticello dam was completed in 1957 after five years. Rather than spilling over the edge of the dam when the water grows higher, it is funneled into the spillway. The spillway of the dam is known as the glory hole and is 72 feet wide. It can hold a maximum of 362,000 gallons of water per second. Water only spills into the glory hole when it reaches fifteen point five feet above the level of the funnel; the last time this happened was in May 2006. The funnel is roughly 700 feet deep from the opening to the bottom of the spill point where the access water is released.

4- Kimberly diamond mine

Also known as simply the big hole the Kimberly diamonds mine in South Africa is one of the largest hand dug holes in the world. The in 1856 in 1914 more than 50,000 miners use shovels and picks to carve out the gigantic hole. It yielded 2,722 kilograms of diamonds while in operation. The hole is 1519 feet wide and was mined to a depth of nearly 3,600 feet underground. Over the years the hole filled with water and only 574 feet remains visible.

5- Dean’s blue holes

While there are several blue holes in the Bahamas Dean's Blue Hole is the largest. This underwater sinkhole is 663 feet deep and is a favorite location for scuba divers as the waters are extremely clear and there is an abundance of sea life. There is actually a competition known as vertical blue held it's a Blue Hole where more than 30 divers meet annually in different free diving events. Legend says the hole was dug by the devil himself and he's still there dragging those that dare to swim there to their deaths.

6- Mirny diamonds mine

Now abandoned the Mirny diamond mine was the first diamond mine in Siberia and was once considered the largest. It is 1722 feet and has a diameter of 3,900 feet, so while it was still in operation it could take two hours for trucks to drive from the top to the bottom of the mine. Excavation of the pit began in 1955 when Stalin ordered the construction; following the war they were desperate for industrial grade diamond.

7- Dragon hole

In the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands a newly discovered oceanic sinkhole has appeared. dubbed the dragon hole this deep blue hole was recently measured to be 987 feet deep, 300 feet deeper than dean's blue hole in the Bahamas. More than 20 different species of fish have been found living in the upper 300 feet of the hole. Researchers believe this could be the deepest blue hole on the planet, but since the depth is far too pressurized for a diver to explore properly they have only used robotic sensors.

8- Diavik mine

Owned by the dominion diamond corporation the Diavik mine in the Northwest Territories of Canada is the largest diamond mine in the great white north. The mine is more than 600 feet deep is considered one of the deepest man-made holes ever made. In 2015 alone at yielded 187.7 carats of diamonds. The open pit mining ended in 2012 and was switched to underground mining which is expected to continue into the 2020s.

9- Berkeley Pit

Formally one of the largest open pit copper mines in the US the Berkeley pit in Butte, Montana is 1,780 feet deep. It was an operation between 1955 and 1982 before being abandoned. Today it is filled with roughly 40 billion gallons of highly acidic water laden with dangerous chemicals and heavy metals. There are serious concerns that when the water in the pit erodes the surrounding rock it will release into the surrounding waterways, polluting the nearby Silver Bow Creek. Researchers believe this could happen as early as 2020.

10- Kola super-deep borehole

Created as the result of a scientific drilling project the Kola super-deep borehole is located in Pechengsky district in Russia on the Kola Peninsula. The project began in May 1970 and the purpose was to drill as deeply into the Earth's crust as possible. several bore holes were created, but the deepest reached 40,112 feet in 1989 and remains the deepest man-made hole on earth despite being only nine inches wide. Drilling ultimately stopped in 1992 is higher than expected temperatures underground made further drilling impossible.