“This is the time of the year when there’s a lot of solar energy influx, which causes the snow to melt and the upper layers of the ground to heat up, and that causes changes in their properties and behavior.” The timing was not random, according to Chuvilin. The crater was first spotted during a helicopter flight on July 16, 2020. They believe the mound would have exploded at some point between May 15 and June 9, 2020. With the use of satellite imagery, the researchers were also able to pinpoint when the crater formed. “Climate change, of course, has an impact on the probability of gas blowout craters appearing in the Arctic permafrost,” Chuvilin said. Some experts estimate that soils in the permafrost region hold twice as much carbon as the atmosphere does, making the region extremely important in the fight against climate change. Warmer summers – the Arctic is warming two times faster than the global average – have weakened the permafrost layer, which acts as a cap, making it easier for gas to escape.

Permafrost is a huge natural reservoir of methane, a potent greenhouse gas much more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat and warming the planet. It could come from deep layers within the Earth or closer to the surface – or a combination of the two. What’s still unclear is the source of the methane. The mound grows in size before blowing out ice and other debris in an explosion and leaving behind the massive crater. The model, which showed unusual grottoes or caverns in the lower part of the crater, largely confirmed what scientists had hypothesized: Methane gas builds in a cavity in the ice, causing a mound to appear at ground level. Their findings were published in the journal Geosciences last week. It was also the first time researchers have been able to fly a drone deep into a crater – reaching 10 to 15 meters below ground, allowing them to capture the shape of the underground cavity where methane had built up.Ĭhuvilin was part of a team of Russian scientists who visited the crater in August 2020.

“The new crater is uniquely well preserved, as surface water hadn’t yet accumulated in the crater when we surveyed it, which allowed us to study a ‘fresh’ crater, untouched by degradation,” said Evgeny Chuvilin, lead research scientist at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology’s Center for Hydrocarbon Recovery in Moscow. Drone photography, 3D modeling and artificial intelligence are helping to reveal their secrets. The craters are thought to be linked to climate change. It was the 17th hole to appear in the remote Yamal and Gyda peninsulas in the Russian Arctic since the first was spotted in 2013, mystifying scientists. The massive crater appeared violently and explosively in the Siberian tundra last year – a powerful blowout of methane gas throwing ice and rock hundreds of feet away and leaving a gaping circular scar in the empty and eerie landscape.

CC 1st Studio Siberian Mouse