After a flood of speculation — meteorite collision, methane explosion related to gas drilling, UFO — following the discovery of a gaping crater in the permafrost near big gas fields on the Yamal peninsula in Siberia, scientists are starting to offer more informed views.
The Siberian Times, the source of initial aerial images and video, has posted the first article citing scientists at the scene. Here are some excerpts.
The crater is smaller than initial reports:
Andrey Plekhanov, Senior Researcher at the State Scientific Centre of Arctic Research, said: "The crater has more of an oval than a circular shape, it makes it harder to calculate the exact diameter. As of now our estimates is about thirty metres."
Here's more from Plekharov, on a possible connection to the warming climate:
"Could it be linked to the global warming? We have to continue our research to answer this question. Two previous summers – years 2012 and 2013 were relatively hot for Yamal, perhaps this has somehow influenced the formation of the crater. But we have to do our tests and research first and then say it more definitively."
He also rebutted speculation that the black marks around the perimeter indicated a fiery explosion had taken place (one example):
"For now we can say for sure that under the influence of internal processes there was an ejection in the permafrost. I want to stress that it was not an explosion, but an ejection, so there was no heat released as it happened."
Earlier scientists were sure there was burning visible on the sides of the crater.
"I also want to recall a theory that our scientists worked on in the 1980s — it has been left and then forgotten for a number of years. The theory was that the number of Yamal lakes formed because of exactly such natural process happening in the permafrost.
Such kind of processes were taking place about 8,000 years ago. Perhaps they are repeating nowadays. If this theory is confirmed, we can say that we have witnessed a unique natural process that formed the unusual landscape of Yamal peninsula."
Chris Fogwill, an Australian paleoclimatologist and geologist, offers some helpful context in the Sydney Morning Herald on the process by which "pingos," ice formations in permafrost landscapes, transform into lakes.
The British Society for Geomorphology has produced a helpful diagram (at right) showing how this works. Click here for a larger version.
Addendum | Other big holes — mostly familiar sinkholes — have made the news off and on, including the giant hole generated when a salt mine collapsed in Louisiana, one that swallowed some vintage Corvettes in Kentucky and the extremely unnerving orifice in Guatemala City that I covered in 2010. Here's an aerial view of that hole:
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