What Else is Up this 2020? A Giant Crater Found in Siberia
Just when you are probably already starting to think that the year 2020 is already out of surprises. A huge crater that is about a 50-meter-deep has been recently seen in northern Siberia. The said hole was initially spotted by a Russian TV crew, and according to The Siberian Times, blocks of soil and ice thrown hundreds of meters away from the epicenter have been found.
Giant new 50-metre deep ‘crater’ opens up in Arctic tundra. Blocks of soil and ice thrown hundreds of metres from epicentre of the funnel at the Yamal peninsula https://t.co/2fTA8GZRS4 #YamalFunnels2020 pic.twitter.com/t5CJRVwuRS
— The Siberian Times (@siberian_times) August 29, 2020
A Giant Crater Found in Siberia
The question is, what may have caused the massive hole? Is it a meteorite strike? A missile? Or perhaps a UFO?
Well, based on a report published by the National Geographic just this September 23, 2020, they stated that scientists believe that the craters at the Siberian Arctic are formed from blasts of methane and carbon dioxide gas trapped within mounds of dirt and ice. However, it was said that “much remains uncertain.”
Furthermore, there are also recent studies of other craters that point to cryovolcanism as a likely mechanism. In cryovolcanism, instead of fiery molten rocks, eruptions take the form of frosty mud or slush. Although cryovolcanism is known in our solar system, it is thought to be uncommon on our planet.
“Cryovolcanism, as some researchers call it, is a very poorly studied and described process in the cryosphere, an explosion involving rocks, ice, water and gases that leaves behind a crater. It is a potential threat to human activity in the Arctic, and we need to thoroughly study how gases, especially methane, are accumulated in the top layers of the permafrost and which conditions can cause the situation to go extreme.”
This was said by Evgeny Chuvilin of the Skoltech Center for Hydrocarbon Recovery earlier this year. Chuvilin is one of the authors of two studies on a 20-meter wide and 20-meter deep crater in the Yamal Peninsula, “A Gas-Emission Crater in the Erkuta River Valley, Yamal Peninsula: Characteristics and Potential Formation Model” and “Conceptual Models of Gas Accumulation in the Shallow Permafrost of Northern West Siberia and Conditions for Explosive Gas Emissions”, both published in the journal Geosciences.
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Source: National Geographic, The Siberian Times, Science Alert, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Geosciences Journal
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