Mysterious crater in Siberia
In 2018, when Russian astronauts were on a mission to the International Space Station, when they took a full picture of the earth, they accidentally discovered that there is often a mysterious arrow in Russia’s Siberia region.
They immediately broke the news to Roscosmos on the ground. It immediately attracted great attention, and scientists from all over the world sent scientific expedition teams to conduct on-the-spot investigations. It turned out that this was not an arrow at all, but a huge pothole!
Scientists have found that the pit is not big, 20 meters wide and 52 meters deep. It is located near the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia, which is an important natural gas producing area in Russia.
After careful investigation, it was found that the surrounding area of the pit was full of gray mud piles mixed with crushed ice and permafrost, and the surrounding plants still had scorched traces, like the traces caused by the explosion, but what happened after the explosion Can it produce so much power?
Viewed from the air, the newly exposed soil after the explosion is in stark contrast to the surrounding green tundra and black lakes. The soil and rocks exposed inside the cylindrical pit are almost black. When the scientists got here, there was already accumulated water at the bottom of the cave, which became a pool.
Last year, for the first time, researchers used drones to enter the crater to a depth of 10 to 15 meters for observation and exploration. In total, more than 80 photos were taken and 3D patterns of potholes up to 30 meters deep were drawn. The crater has been found to contain a large amount of methane gas, but scientists do not know exactly where the methane came from. Could it be the energy from the interior of the earth?
Chile’s crater sinks deeper and deeper
Coincidentally, just this year, a bottomless crater appeared near the Alcaparrosa copper mine in Chile. What is even more worrying is that this crater seems to be expanding.
When initially measured, the diameter of the pit was only about 25 meters, but with the passage of time, the current width has reached 50 meters, and the depth is close to 200 meters. Moreover, the location of the collapse is located in the center of the road. Fortunately, no vehicles passed by during the collapse, otherwise the scene like a disaster movie would really become a reality.
Giant pits in other countries
In addition, similar giant pits have appeared in many parts of the world. In 2021, a large pit also appeared in a farmland in Mexico. Local residents thought it was a thunderstorm at first, but later found that a large piece of the field was missing. It also expanded rapidly, from less than 30 meters in diameter at first, and finally expanded to more than 120 meters.
A mysterious crater 121 meters deep appeared in Louisiana in the southern United States in August, swallowing all the surrounding trees. The local government ordered the emergency evacuation of residents living nearby to prevent possible explosions and nuclear radiation disasters.
The crater is said to have appeared in a dense forest in the parish of Ersampson, about 80 kilometers south of Baton Rouge, with many very tall cypress trees. From the aerial photos, the tops of some trees are exposed above the crater.
The local government has issued an evacuation order for 100 to 150 households there, and if there is a very critical situation, the local government will escalate the evacuation order to a forced evacuation order.
What caused the crater to form?
How did these giant pits form? In 2010, Brazilian geologist Edmi went to the mysterious giant craters in southern Brazil to investigate, and believed that the appearance of these craters was not a natural geological change.
In the early years, another expert, Frank, found mysterious potholes in New Hampshire. He also believed that these potholes were not formed naturally, and the claw prints on the walls of the pits convinced him that it was a cave dug by a giant ground sloth.
The report also pointed out that Frank has so far found more than 1,500 similar potholes in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In 2015, Edmie returned to the potholes, which he believes were not dug by one or two creatures, but passed down from generation to generation. Could it be that creatures unknown to human beings are secretly creating these giant pits?
Of course, most scientists scoff at Frank’s almost sci-fi explanation. They believe that the emergence of giant craters is inseparable from changes in the earth’s environment. Take the giant crater in Siberia, where the soil layer is basically frozen soil.
However, in recent years, with the intensification of the greenhouse effect, Siberia has also experienced high temperatures of 20° or even 30°. The melting point of ice has long been passed, and the permafrost that scientists previously thought was melting.
Since ice is smaller than water, frozen soil naturally collapses when it thaws. Such a large-scale permafrost has melted, the soil layer lost its support, and naturally collapsed into a huge tiankeng.
Scientists have also put forward a different view, arguing that the formation of the giant crater was not caused by the gradual sinking of the permafrost below the surface thawing and moving, but by explosions.
Some scientists have compared these permafrost ring-shaped craters to the ice volcanoes of extraterrestrial objects. The latter erupts with icy magma rather than lava, which scientists originally thought existed only on distant frozen bodies like our solar system’s Pluto, Saturn’s moon Titan and the dwarf planet Ceres.
But as more and more Arctic craters are studied at different stages of their evolution, scientists now consider the Siberian crater to be a “gas eruption ring crater.” The name provides some clues as to how the ring-shaped crater in Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula was formed.
Following this line of thought, some scientists have put forward a view that the Siberian crater is due to the eruption from the ground, causing a huge annular crater on the ice mound or mound. Ice mounds are cone-shaped hillocks in the Arctic tundra. The permafrost here is pushed by water flowing under the surface. When the water starts to freeze, the permafrost expands and swells to form ice mounds.
A large amount of methane gas and natural gas has accumulated under the ice mound. A large amount of methane dissolves in the moisture of the unfrozen wet and cold soil. If the water begins to freeze and the remaining unfrozen water is saturated, the natural gas dissolved in the water will bubble and release, resulting in an explosion. Once the crater forms after the explosion, the gas disappears. Another source of methane and carbon dioxide could be microbes thriving in cold, wet formations breaking down organic material and releasing gases.
Of course, in addition to the environmental impact, the destruction of the natural world by human activities may also be one of the main reasons for the formation of giant craters. Take the Chilean crater just mentioned, which is located near a copper mine, most likely due to the impact of over-mining on the ground. In fact, the explosions during the usual mining operations here are simply deafening, affecting the surrounding houses and streets every day, and the nearby residents are afraid.
In addition, some experts have pointed out that over-exploitation of groundwater may also cause the ground to collapse and create huge pits.
Although there are different opinions on the causes of giant pits, one thing is certain is that if humans cannot stop the destruction of the environment, similar giant pits will continue to appear. At that time, human beings realize that they have come to the brink of destruction. Is it too late?
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