Theories abounded, one more imaginative than the other, when the first mysterious crater was discovered on the Jamal Peninsula in Siberia in 2013:
A UFO landing. A meteorite. Collapse of a secret military facility underground.
Now researchers may be cracking the riddle.
Out of nowhere
The special thing about these craters is the depth of up to 50 meters, the vertical shape in the lower part, and that they occur in areas with permafrost – ie that the soil never thaws.
And that they appear – apparently – out of nowhere.
“Right now there is not a single, accepted theory about how these complex phenomena occur,” says researcher Evgeny Chuvilin at the Skolkovo Institute. CNN.
– A big cry for help
Chuvilin recently visited the last known crater, which this summer was discovered by a flying TV team from the local channel Vesti Yamal.
No spectators
“Because craters usually appear in uninhabited, largely untouched Arctic regions, often no one can see them and report them,” Chuvilin told CNN.
Therefore, most of the craters have been found by chance, as this summer’s discovery was made by a TV team.
So far, everyone is on the Jamal and Gyda peninsulas in Siberia. No similarities have been found in Arctic parts of the United States and Canada.
It gives researchers more clues to follow.
– Occurred after extreme summers
A theory referenced by the news magazine Newsweek, is that when permafrost melts, substances found in the soil are broken down and methane gas is formed. When there is enough of the gas, an explosion occurs.
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Marina Leibman, an expert on permafrost at the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes that extremely hot summers in 2012, 2016 and 2020 may have played a role in the explosions that formed the craters.
She has participated in a research team that has examined five of the 17 craters that have been discovered so far.
– It is difficult to rule out extreme air temperatures, because the first group of craters appeared after the extreme 2012 summer, the second group after the extreme 2016 summer and the last after the extreme 2020 summer. Nothing in between, Leibman told CNN.
– Comes from deep in the earth
One who doubts that climate change is the main reason for these craters is the researcher Vasily Bogoyavlensky from the Institute of Oil and Gas at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
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He tells CNN that stories of explosions that create craters have been circulating among people in the area in the past as well.
Bogoyavlensky believes that the exploding gas comes from deep in the earth – something Leibman believes is wrong.
Although Bogoyavlensky has not personally seen a crater form, he has at least talked to a reindeer herder who did it in 2017.
– Could have been killed
“Every morning she went to a small frozen mound in the river because it was the highest point,” Bogoyavlensky told CNN.
– The morning the explosion happened, she began to feel something in her legs and became scared and ran, he says. She ran 200, 300 meters before it slammed.
– She could have been killed, says Bogoyavlensky.
The “gate to hell” is growing
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