Blocks of soil and ice thrown hundreds of metres from epicentre of the funnel at the Yamal peninsula.
The new funnel filmed from air by the team of Yamal-based TV station. Picture from July 2020 by Vesti Yamal
The recently-formed new hole or funnel is the latest to be seen in northern Siberia since the phenomenon was first registered in 2014.
It was initially spotted by chance from the air by a Vesti Yamal TV crew en route from an unrelated assignment.
A group of scientists then made an expedition to examine the large cylindrical crater which has a depth of up to 50 metres.
Such funnels are believed to be caused by the build up of methane gas in pockets of thawing permafrost under the surface.
Pictures of B1, the very first funnel seen in summer 2014 on the Yamal peninsula, and a map of the first four funnels in both Yamal and Taymyr peninsula. Pictures: Vasily Bogoyavlensky
Scientist Dr Evgeny Chuvilin, a leading researcher at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, said: ‘What we saw today is striking in its size and grandeur.
'These are the colossal forces of nature that create such objects.’
The 'crater' - these holes are called hydrolaccoliths or bulgunnyakhs by scientists - is given the number 17, and is seen as the most impressive of the large holes to suddenly appear in recent years as the permafrost thaws.
Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, of the Russian Oil and Gas Research Institute in Moscow, told Vesti Yamal: 'This object is unique. It carries a lot of additional scientific information, which I am not yet ready to disclose.
'This is a subject for scientific publications. We have to analyse all this, and build three-dimensional models.’
A new funnel was noticed by chance by a crew of Vesti Yamal TV as they were flying from an unrelated assignment. Pictures from July 2020 by Vesti Yamal
The craters appear because ‘gas-saturated cavities are formed in the permafrost…
’In a literal sense, a void space filled with gas with high pressure. The covering layer distends, the thickness of which is 5-10 metres approximately.’
Explosions have happened in swelling pingos, or mounds in the tundra which erupts when the gas builds up under a thick cap of ice.
Bogoyavlensky has previously claimed that human activities, like drilling for gas from the vast Yamal reserves could be a factor in the eruptions.
He is concerned at the risk of ecological disasters if pingos build up close to a gas pipelines, production facilities or residential areas.
‘In a number of areas, pingos - as we see both from satellite data and with our own eyes during helicopter inspections - literally prop up gas pipes,’ he said previously.
Archeologists discovered a new stone bracelet, two sharp pins, a marble ring and fox tooth pendants.
Comments (37)
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Could high pressure pockets of methane gas contained within permafrost layers provide the pressure necessary to stabilize these relic hydrates at unusually shallow depths, even without ice sheets?
Sorry to comment so many times, this is my last comment, I think.
Thank you, Siberian Times, for your coverage of this interesting and possibly very important natural phenomenon.
Could high pressure pockets of methane gas contained within permafrost layers provide the pressure necessary to stabilize these relic hydrates at unusually shallow depths, even without ice sheets?
Sorry to comment so many times, this is my last comment, I think.
Thank you, Siberian Times, for your coverage of this interesting and possibly very important natural phenomenon.
If true, that the source of gas is methane hydrate, this would imply that the Yamal Penninsula has been glaciated in the past, because ice sheets would be necessary to apply the pressure to make the methane hydrates stable. Some maps of past ice ages show ice sheets on or near the Yamal Penninsula, although not all experts agree.
I think this is a newly recognized but widespread geological process, over large areas of Siberia and smaller areas of Canada. The circular lakes in these areas are a sign that much larger methane blowouts, now merged together by permafrost erosion, occurred 5000-9000 years ago during the Holocene Climate Optimum or earlier warm periods, I think.
Some Russian gas drilling scientific papers mention such a layer, needing heavy drilling mud to prevent gas explosions, when drilling through this layer.
How much methane would there be in such a layer, and if it is starting to come out under the influence of global warming, how much will come out, and how fast will it come out?
Russian scientists were saying a couple of years ago that there are many thousands of these pingo mounds, and that some of them appear to be growing, ready to explode into craters.
As the walls of permafrost erode, can these blowout craters enlarge, getting wider but shallower? Can they merge together, to form larger lakes?
@Dan; very egoistic point of you! we the human species are killing our Mother Nature NOT visa versa...However nature is a force to be reckoned with as I stated in my comment ie. nature is more powerful than humanity will ever be...
Extraction of oil does not leave a void. Oil (and deep gas) is formed over millions of years by burial heat of organic matter deposited when the sedimentary rocks were formed. These hydrocarbons migrate upwards through permeable rocks such as sandstones. When extracted, the hydrocarbons are replaced by fossil water in the rocks - the oil-water contact moves upwards. Methane hydrates are different - shallow on land and under the seabed, they are like ice - frozen gas