Scientists Uncover the Mystery Behind the Massive Craters in Siberia

Scientists are worried about the massive craters appearing in the permafrost on a remote peninsula in the Arctic Circle. For a time, no one knew where it came from or how it was formed. An article in Future reported that these craters appeared suddenly and explosively, leaving a ragged pockmark on the landscape.

Torn, gray jumble of ice, and clods of permafrost are evident in the edge of the craters, while the roots of the plants are exposed around the rim, which shows signs of scorching. Scientists believe that it is a sign of how violently the craters in the middle of the Siberian Arctic were formed.

Mystery Craters in the Arctic Circle

Geologist Evgeny Chuvilin of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow, Russia has flown out in 2014 to the remote part of the Yamal Peninsula to take a look. Surprisingly, they saw a huge hole in the ground that appeared from nowhere.

The freshly exposed crater stands out from the green tundra and dark lakes that surround it. The scientists could see layers of earth and rock that are exposed inside the cylindrical hole where a pool of water is already forming at the bottom.

The hole was around 66ft (20m) wide and up to 171ft (52m) deep and was found around 26 miles (42km) from the Bovanenkovo gas field on the Yamal Peninsula. Scientists analyzed the satellite images of the hole, which revealed that it formed sometime between October 9 and November 1, 2013.

Since then, scientists have discovered more of these craters across the Yamal and Gyda peninsulas. However, exactly how these holes formed is still a mystery.

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Exploding Bubbles

According to National Geographic, some believe that the mechanism cryovolcanism could have caused the sudden appearance of the craters. This is a phenomenon wherein eruptions take the form of frosty mud or slush instead of molten rocks.

Researchers have gathered evidence that the explosions come from gas, most likely methane, that has been building up in isolated pockets across the tundra. The pressure accumulates fast which makes the bubble explodes when the strain is finally too much.

Some think that the methane gas could have come from the salty liquid but other researchers think that the climate change might have been thawing the frozen soil in the Arctic Circle, which then generates the methane gas. It is also possible that the methane from frozen animals gets trapped in the ice.

Climate Change Might Be the Cause of the Mysterious Massive Craters

Many researchers believe that the mysterious massive craters were caused by the gradual rise in temperatures, according to Discover Magazine. However, scientists are unsure how climate change triggers the methane build-up.

They noted that several craters were found after unusually hot summers, which could mean that the heat waves might have exacerbated the gas formation bubbling inside the frozen soil underground.

Predicting where the next crater would emerge could help save people. However, identifying gas emission craters seems to be tricky. So researchers built an algorithm from the same satellite data they used to analyze the craters they found that could detect existing gas emission craters.

The researchers reported 17 gas emission craters in the area, but only seven were recorded in scientific papers. The algorithm correctly identified all seven craters and two previously undocumented emission craters.