Digging Deep

What's the deepest human-made bore on Earth? Is it as deep as the "wells of salvation?"

In Jules Verne's 1864 novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth, a mad German scientist named Otto Lidenbrock decides to take a journey down through the mouth of a volcano into the Earth's core where he and his companions find a world filled with prehistoric dinosaurs, mastodons and giant humans, among other things. It's an adventure story that continues to intrigue people in the 21st century. The 2008 movie version, starring Brendan Fraser, acts as a kind of sequel to the original book.

Of course, any elementary school science student knows that the story and all its adaptations are pure fiction. When you drill down deep into the Earth you don't eventually pop up in China, nor do you find dinosaurs (unless you count their remains in the form of oil). The Earth's core isn't a prehistoric wonderland. It's a solid ball made up of an iron and nickel alloy that, according to seismologists, is as hot as the surface of the sun. A real journey to the center of the Earth would be a one-way...