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Since its discovery earlier in the lands Siberia Frozen, 8 huge and deep craters have raised many speculations regarding their origin, as the crater reaches a depth of about 50 meters, and is found only on the Yamal and Gydan Peninsula in northern Russia, and is not found anywhere else along the region surrounding the North Pole.
Many theories have suggested that it is the product of ancient meteorite explosions, while it indicates… Recent study The craters have formed in areas previously occupied by historic lakes that released natural gas from the permafrost below. As these lakes dried up and the surface temperature dropped, this led to gas being trapped and accumulated, resulting in explosions and the formation of craters of this depth.
The thickness of the permafrost on the Yamal and Gydan Peninsula ranges from a few meters to about 500 metres, and has been frozen for more than 40,000 years, trapping methane-rich marine sediments and accumulating in buried reservoirs of natural gas. Naturally, these reservoirs emit heat, which causes the permafrost to thaw from below and form gas pockets.
Climate change is also causing the surface of the permafrost to melt, especially in areas of thin thickness. This melting, in addition to gas pressure from below, leads to the collapse of the permafrost, leading to explosions.
The researchers point out that there may be more craters than were observed, while the release of natural gas and methane from the ground during these explosions will contribute to increasing the problem of global warming, and thus will contribute to accelerating the melting of the permafrost again.
Arctic permafrost contains an estimated 1,900 billion tons of greenhouse gases, which is a major concern if these eruptions continue to occur.
