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Mysterious Siberian Crater Is Just One of Many

Posted by Soulskill on from the watch-out-for-exploding-earth dept.

New submitter Sardaukar86 sends this excerpt from a Washington Post report: In the middle of last summer came news of a bizarre occurrence no one could explain. Seemingly out of nowhere, a massive crater appeared in one of the planet's most inhospitable lands. Early estimates said the crater, nestled in a land called "the ends of the Earth" where temperatures can sink far below zero, yawned nearly 100 feet in diameter. The saga deepened. The Siberian crater wasn't alone. There were two more, ratcheting up the tension in a drama that hit its climax as a probable explanation surfaced. Global warming had thawed the permafrost, which had caused methane trapped inside the icy ground to explode.

Now, however, researchers fear there are more craters than anyone knew — and the repercussions could be huge. Russian scientists have now spotted a total of seven craters, five of which are in the Yamal Peninsula. Two of those holes have since turned into lakes. And one giant crater is rimmed by a ring of at least 20 mini-craters, the Siberian Times reported.

57 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Denial by ChrisKnight · · Score: 4, Funny

    Black Rock City Subway categorically denies that these craters are a result of our sandworm breeding program. Scurrilous reports in The Daily Mail fail to take into account that sandworms react poorly to moist environments. Sometimes they even explode when exposed to water. Oh, wait...

    --
    -- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
    1. Re:Denial by skyking · · Score: 1

      Yes, but when you drown one of the baby makers and consume the water ... I say let the sandworms breed - the resulting natural selection beats the heck out of anything the Bene Gesserit [junk science movement] can come up with.

      --
      Blaming guns for Columbine is like blaming spoons for Rosie O'Donnell being fat.
  2. stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by iggymanz · · Score: 1, Interesting

    1. This land is geologically YOUNG, it is less than ten thousand years old

    2. The earth itself is warming the underside of the permafrost, even if there is contribution from global warming https://cage.uit.no/news/metha...

    Thus there is no reason to wail about some imagined harbinger of doom because of these sinkholes.

    1. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by Brett+Buck · · Score: 4, Funny

      What are you talking about? Pseudo-scientific bullshit it what /. is about!

    2. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by Dutchmaan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The only one I see "wailing" here is you. People are confused and somewhat concerned, not "wailing".

    3. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      1. This land is geologically YOUNG, it is less than ten thousand years old

      2. The earth itself is warming the underside of the permafrost, even if there is contribution from global warming https://cage.uit.no/news/metha...

      Thus there is no reason to wail about some imagined harbinger of doom because of these sinkholes.

      iggymanz may very well be one of the worlds leading scientists with a better understanding of this than the interviewed researches, but regardless you seem to be attacking a straw man as most of the researchers interviewed in the article seems curious and open, have theories but says more research is needed. The only one with very strongly worded categorical claims here here is you.

    4. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by itzly · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If they were sinkholes, there wouldn't be ejecta around the crater edge. Something must have exploded.

    5. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by Allasard · · Score: 1
      As long as it's not the re-awakening of a mantle plume under this!

      Siberian Traps

      That puts any supervolcanoes to shame.

      Although the plates have shifted locations since that eruption.

    6. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by earthminion · · Score: 1

      Talk of the amount of Methane gas building up has been around for years. Here's one TV program the BBC broadcast 5 years ago.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      Imagine a large pocket of methane suddenly bursting free under some pressure. It would only take a little spark to set it off. For example, throw some stones onto some other stones. Just two stones hitting each other would make a nice spark etc.. That would easily create some big holes.

      But that's just an impressive side show. Its biggest danger however is the potential for Positive Feedback because Methane is of course a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2, so large amounts of it being released will increase warming, so more Methane will be released and faster. Release large amounts of Methane and we easily start talking about a few metres of sea rise in a matter of a few decades.

    7. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Informative

      Imagine a large pocket of methane suddenly bursting free under some pressure. It would only take a little spark to set it off. For example, throw some stones onto some other stones. Just two stones hitting each other would make a nice spark etc.. That would easily create some big holes.

      It doesn't usually work that way. If it did, we'd have far more fires and explosions in homes that heat with gas.

      When gas leaks, the vast majority of the gassed area has too high concentration of gas, and too low concentration of oxygen, to burn. Further out, it's too much air and too little gas. It is only at the "interface" between those two conditions that combustion is possible, and relatively speaking that's a miniscule volume compared to either the "air" volume or the "gas" volume at any given time.

      In addition to that, if ignition does occur, usually only that small volume with the ideal mix burns, leaving (again) a volume of too-high concentration, and another too low. Explosions can alter that by chaotically mixing the gas with the surrounding air, and multiplying itself. But that seldom happens.

      To sum it all up: gas fires and explosions are not very common, because conditions have to be nearly ideal at the precise spot where the ignition takes place. They happen on TV vastly more often than in real life.

    8. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by earthminion · · Score: 1

      "It doesn't usually work that way. If it did, we'd have far more fires and explosions in homes that heat with gas. "

      Oh so according to you, it can't ever happen even in an area of many tens of thousands of acres, even if we wait years to find a few events. Try vastly increasing your scale of thinking before you try to be so closedmindedly dismissive. Plus Methane holes in ice, (like cracks) can be very irregular, so yes, they can mix with air, plus also you can have trapped Oxygen and/or air bubbles below ice as well as Methane.

    9. Re: stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by jd · · Score: 1

      The Great Extinction, caused by Siberia becoming one gigantic lava bed (probably after an asteroid strike), was a bit further back in time. Geologically, Siberia is old. You might be confusing the vestiges of Ice Age dessication (which was 10,000 years ago) but which involves the organics on the surface with the geology (aka rocks).

      Regardless, though, of how the craters are forming, the fact remains that an awful lot of greenhouse gas is being pumped into the air, an awful lot of information on early civilization is being blasted out of existence, and a lot of locals are finding that the land has suddenly become deadly.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    10. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      Oh so according to you, it can't ever happen even in an area of many tens of thousands of acres, even if we wait years to find a few events.

      That isn't what I said,

      Trying to put words in my mouth is a dick thing to do. Knock it off.

    11. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1
      In any case the Russians have the explanation. From TFA:

      For example, you all remember the magnificent shots of the Yamal crater in winter, made during the latest expedition in Novomber 2014. But do you know that Vladimir Putin, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, was the first man in the world who went down the crater of gas emission riding on a bear? More than this, it was very risky, because no one could guarantee there would not be Ukrainian Kike-Banderites hiding down there.'

    12. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by sumdumass · · Score: 2

      Ice expands as it freezes. We also know water under pressure will super cool and not freeze but it will still expand. Take a pop bottle and fill it with water without putting the cap on and set it in the freezer. It will spill out the top. Put the cap on it and it will simple expand the plastic bottle (or break a glass bottle)

      Now imagine a hole in the ground or a pocket of water just under the surface of the ground. It freezes, pushes up, and brings the ground with it a bit. It's under pressure so it doesn't all freeze but exerts force in pretty much a radius. The relief point is up until the weight of the column of water finds another relief point (a crack in the earth leading to sea or something.) If you look at the craters again, you will not find enough material around the edges to correct for the amount missing from the hole.

      Now there is something called geothermal flux which is more or less changes in the heat within the ground. It is already being blamed for some of the permafrost melting. And we know there are perforations within the permafrost in the sea beds off the coast which are letting methane release. It's could have aided in the release and removal of material assuming water under pressure was in fact not frozen in these areas.

      The pictures do not look like sink holes can be ruled out. What would likely rule sink holes out would be the depths of the permafrost as well as when it was originally established (the last ice age I believe).

    13. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Another factor is nearby gas wells have lowered the local water table recently which changes how seasonal thawing happens on the spot, so "warming" should be taken literally as a matter of local conditions instead of a knee jerk assumption that the observer was blaming it on global warming so must be burned as a witch.

    14. Re:stop the pseudo-scientific bullshit by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Your glibly dismissive attitude overlooks so much, but instead of answering the points you play affronted, thereby not answering the points raised. You know damn well you were wrongly dismissive.

      You didn't MAKE any points. Instead, you argued with something I didn't say. I merely stated that it USUALLY doesn't work that way, and explained why. My description was accurate. I didn't say it was impossible. But you glibly assumed that it was LIKELY. It was not.

      End of discussion.

  3. Global warming is non-scientific hooey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The scientific explanation would be that God is angry at the Russian heathens.

  4. Re:Help me out here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So what ignited it at that depth?

    Nothing ignited it.

    From TFA:

    Gas pressure increased until it was high enough to push away the overlaying layers in a powerful injection, forming the crater

  5. Do not fear by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Funny

    Gazprom is aggressively and heroically working to remove the methane from the ground in that region. With any luck, they'll be able to remove it all so we can burn it before anything goes wrong.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  6. Re:I have no problem explaining this by Skidborg · · Score: 2

    Methane has always been combustible.

    --
    Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
  7. Re:I have no problem explaining this by itzly · · Score: 1

    So your hypothesis is that the Russians are doing secret weapon testing in a remote area, and then showing the results in the news ?

  8. Re:I have no problem explaining this by narcc · · Score: 1

    Yes, but it tends not to combust spontaneously.

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics
  9. Re:I have no problem explaining this by itzly · · Score: 2

    That's mostly because people around the world are very careful not to let sufficient quantities of methane mix with air in an stoichiometric ratio.

  10. The U.S. has its own mysterious "craters" too by Solandri · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are a series of "craters" in the U.S. as well, though much older. The Carolina bays are elliptical depressions located along the Atlantic seaboard of unknown origin. Theories of the origins being geologic or extraterrestrial impacts have come in and out of favor. Nobody really knows. (And before you say that impact craters are round regardless of the angle of impact, that's true until you get to very shallow impact angles. Then the craters end up being oval.)

  11. It never combusted. by johncandale · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It never combusted. The permafrost melted and it all just went in the atmosphere and the loss of mass caused a sinkhole. The summary is bad. There was never a explosion besides the dust settling. Think ice sheet breaking. Once it pasts melting point, it accelerates fast enough to watch it with your eyes. If this keep happening most of the timescale modals of global warming are off and we will have reached a weird point-of-no-return due to the major mass of methane added to the atmosphere all at once.

    1. Re:It never combusted. by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 1

      It never combusted. The permafrost melted and it all just went in the atmosphere and the loss of mass caused a sinkhole. The summary is bad. There was never a explosion besides the dust settling.

      You're right, the summary could have been better, however I can say in its defence that the summary as you read it now is an awful lot better than the one I submitted.

      It's quite a reasonable assumption that combustion is involved when coming across a discussion about a methane explosion, however in this situation there was no actual combustion. Despite this, the event was still quite accurately described as a methane exploding. Is there a common method of differentiating the two other than affixing a disclaimer about a "pressure explosion" versus a "combustion pressure explosion"?

      --
      ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
    2. Re:It never combusted. by Layzej · · Score: 1

      Is there a common method of differentiating the two other than affixing a disclaimer about a "pressure explosion" versus a "combustion pressure explosion"?

      Maybe "eruption" for the former?

    3. Re:It never combusted. by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 1

      Nice and simple, works for me. :)

      --
      ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
    4. Re:It never combusted. by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 1

      Perhaps these sinkholes are appearing due to overtesting of house atomics.

    5. Re:It never combusted. by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 1

      Perhaps these sinkholes are appearing due to overtesting of house atomics.

      Whilst I wouldn't put it past House Putin, even without the Landsraad he'd still have some explaining to do. Could provide some interesting popcorn-munching action for those of us on the arse end of ol' Terra. :)

      Joking aside and somewhat offtopic, Herbert saw the obvious outcome of using these weapons; it was scarcely twenty years into Muad'Dib's reign (when he used nukes against the shield wall) before his eyes were taken by the 'burner. Once that Pandora's Box has been opened there's no going back. The foolish notion that the use of 'limited', 'limited yield' or 'very small tactical' weapons can in any way contain the size of a nuclear engagement must also be laid to rest.

      --
      ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
  12. Don't explosions create seismic waves? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If these are truly explosions ejecting many tons of earth out of these holes, wouldn't they be detected by seismographs around the world, or at least in Russia? I think they should plant seismic detectors in the area so they can immediately detect the next explosion and quickly send a research team to site.

    1. Re:Don't explosions create seismic waves? by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      I don't know if it's in this article, but in an article I read before they planned to do exactly that - put three seismographs in the region, as currently whatever caused the holes did not register on the seismographs elsewhere in Russia (since it appears they are not really explosions but pressure caused ejections, the earth would not be as shaken).

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    2. Re:Don't explosions create seismic waves? by tompaulco · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If these are truly explosions ejecting many tons of earth out of these holes, wouldn't they be detected by seismographs around the world, or at least in Russia? I think they should plant seismic detectors in the area so they can immediately detect the next explosion and quickly send a research team to site.

      Yes, if there had been a large explosion, even if it was not combustion, that amount of earth moving would have been measurable by seismic instruments thousands of miles away. Quarry explosions have been known to display as earthquakes as large as 2.7 on the Richter scale and felt for hundreds of miles, and those would pale in comparison to the amount of earth movement involved in the Siberian craters. It is much more likely that they escaping gas just gradually caused sinkholes, which would still create seismic events, but would be more likely many smaller ones and probably would not pick up on instruments unless they were within 100 miles.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    3. Re:Don't explosions create seismic waves? by pjt33 · · Score: 1

      The Siberia Times article talks about a plan to put "not less than four seismic stations" in the region.

  13. Re:I have no problem explaining this by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    There is limited evidence of combustion. You can have an explosion from rapidly expanding gases without any sort of ignition. Some reindeer herders supposedly saw 'flashes' but it is certainly unclear if these were due to a methane ignition, the aurora borealis or just too much fermented lichen.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  14. Re:I have no problem explaining this by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

    What good is a Doomsday device if nobody knows about?

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  15. Re:Help me out here by stevelinton · · Score: 5, Informative

    You need to find out about methane clathrates. They are very roughly a chemical compound of methane and water which is solid and stable at low temperatures and moderately high pressures (as found under a few hundred meters of water or ice, for instance. When they get a bit too warm, or the pressure drops a bit they turn back into methane gas and water. One cubic meter of clathrate released almost 200 cubic meters of methane gas, which then has to go somewhere producing something like an explosion. At no point did the methane burn (it was nowhere near any free oxygen until it got to the surface, it was just a gas pressure explosion.

  16. Re:I have no problem explaining this by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 1

    What good is a Doomsday device if nobody knows about?

    An easy excuse to make a great documentary with reconstructions played by Peter Sellers? :)

    --
    ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
  17. Source of the craters already known by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is old news - the craters have a known, definitive explanation and it's not anything mysterious.

    1. Re:Source of the craters already known by STRICQ · · Score: 1

      Funny.

  18. Re:Help me out here by justthinkit · · Score: 2

    Also known as methane hydrates, there is no use of the word "explosive" on the mh page. It has a density lower than water, so tends to bubble up (and then evaporate). Being denser than air, it could accumulate at times and potentially explode in that scenario. But not underground, creating giant holes.

    --
    I come here for the love
  19. Re:Help me out here by stevelinton · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think the idea is this:
    You have a large volume of clathrates underneath ice or frozen soil.
    As things warm, they start to break down and a reservoir of methane gas builds up
    at high pressure.
    Eventually the pressure reaches the point where it can push aside or lift up or whatever the ice at its weakest point
    and it finds a route to the surface.

    Now you have a LOT of gas rushing through some kind of hole, a little bit like an oil well blowout and the gas flow erodes the sides of the hole and throws soil or ice into the air and generally starts to make a crater.

    Furthermore the escape of all this gas lowers the pressure down where the clathrates are quite suddenly, so the breakdown accelerated greatly, providing still more gas to ruch up through the hole.

    So not really an explosion, perhaps more like a blowout, but still fairly violent simply because of the amount of gas and the pressure.

    At no point does it combust.

  20. Any coordinates? by Stan92057 · · Score: 1

    Any coordinates? Just looking at the Yamal Peninsula using Google Earth there are hundreds apon hundreds of what i would call very round lakes. I would say they could be old meteor hits but im no scientist.

    --
    Jack of all trades,master of none
  21. Re:I have no problem explaining this by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

    Don't over think this one.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  22. Mole People by cstacy · · Score: 1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  23. Re: I have no problem explaining this by jd2112 · · Score: 2

    I guess I'm not having chilli for dinner tonight.

    --
    Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
  24. Re:I have no problem explaining this by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    Still a while until Putin's birthday. Maybe they're just testing it early.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  25. Ignition Source by Guppy · · Score: 2

    It would only take a little spark to set it off.

    If ignition actually happened, my bet is on a triboelectric spark. All that soil and ice getting tossed up will generate a charge, just like you see in thunderstorms and volcanic eruptions.

  26. Pingos! by STRICQ · · Score: 2

    The holes are not mysterious at all. There is even a name for them.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

    1. Re:Pingos! by Layzej · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Given your source, I'm guessing the name is "anything but global warming?"

  27. Re:Help me out here by Livius · · Score: 1

    Quite bit like how a geyser works.

  28. Re:I have no problem explaining this by zippthorne · · Score: 1

    And yet, the War Room is the inspiration for overpriced conference rooms in bureaucracies the world over.

    --
    Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  29. Re:Proof in pictures, or it didn't happen (recentl by Layzej · · Score: 1

    "Studying the satellite images we found out that initially there were no craters nor a lake. Some craters appeared, then more." - TFA

  30. Snow! by allfieldsrequired · · Score: 1

    A republican managed to throw a snowball during his speech, so obviously global warming can be ruled out!

  31. Come on now! by Sqreater · · Score: 1

    We should all know these are left over from the attack by the Silver Surfer. The Fantastic Four, like all superhero groups, never cleans up after saving mankind.

    --
    E Proelio Veritas.
  32. Re:Help me out here by skyking · · Score: 1

    In other words, mother nature broke wind.

    --
    Blaming guns for Columbine is like blaming spoons for Rosie O'Donnell being fat.