Yamal's mysterious crater harbors new life

Russian scientists from the Russian Center of Arctic Exploration have finally been able to reach the bottom of a crater discovered on the Yamal Peninsula from a helicopter last summer. The Yamal Peninsula is situated in the northern part of Western Siberia, which borders the Kara Sea in the Arctic Ocean. While the crater is located far from populated areas, it is not too far from a gas pipe. It's only accessible by air.

The crater is a hole in the earth approximately 40 meters in diameter and 200 meters in depth. The way the dirt around the crater is scattered is quite telling. The earth was not penetrated from above; instead, an eruption occurred from beneath the earth. During the first expedition to the crater in July, scientists could not descend to its bottom due to the crater's constantly crumbling walls. However, as winter approached, the crater's walls and base froze, allowing expedition members to take ice and soil samples.

The proximity of the Bovanenkovskoye gas field gave rise to the probability that the hole formed as a result of an explosion caused by human activities. Scientists, however, have now definitively concluded that the crater was caused by natural factors.

Scientists do not exclude the possibility that the crater may fill with water in several years and form a small lake, of which there are quite a few on Yamal. Scientists are not certain how they form. One of the primary working theories behind their formation is the eruption of natural gas that collects underneath the earth.

Vladimir Melnikov, an academic and head of the Tyumen Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told media outlets that craters in Yamal most likely formed in 2012 and 2013 as a result of global warming. "Frozen rock formations have started to thaw in Yamal. They've become less thick in some areas, allowing shale gas to exit through them."

Air that has built up in the crater does not contain harmful additives or dangerous gases that could perniciously affect living organisms. This all speaks to the fact that the lake that has formed on the crater’s floor contains bacteria, which in turn makes it possible for new life to spring up here."

The test results should still be studied and analyzed. Preliminary data, however, indicate that the formation of a hole this size may be a sign of a serious degradation in permafrost. Vasily Bogoyavlensky, professor and deputy director of the Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that well-known “analogues” of the Yamal crater have only been encountered on the bed of Arctic seas, including the Kara Sea, but practically no research has been done on them as they presented no practical interest.

Permafrost is soil and rocks that remain at a temperature below 0°С for long periods of time—from 2-3 years to several thousand years. Groundwater exists in permafrost areas as ice. It sometimes exceeds a depth of 1,000 meters.

Permafrost is an enormous reserve of greenhouse gases. This includes methane, in particular, a gas that is primarily responsible for heating the atmosphere, not carbon dioxide, as is commonly assumed.

According to the Institute of the Earth’s Cryosphere, which is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Division, permafrost covers more than 70% of Russia’s territory in one form or another. That’s approximately 12 million square kilometers. This area has not changed over the past decade. According to various estimates, permafrost covers a quarter of all dry land.

In addition to covering Russia, permafrost also exists in the north regions of Alaska, Canada, Europe, Asia, islands in the North Arctic Ocean, and Antarctica. It even exists in mountainous regions of Africa. The only continent to not have any permafrost is Australia.