(Newswire.net— September 9, 2020) — Recently, another huge hole in the ground was filmed in the tundra in Siberia, and scientists are still not sure why giant, symmetrical holes are appearing in that region. There have been at least nine of them since 2013, CNN reports.
The Russian TV crew flew over the Siberian tundra this summer and noticed a massive crater 30 meters deep and 20 meters wide, astonishing in its size, symmetry, and the raw amount of explosive force of nature that it had to show in all its strength to do such a thing, writes CNN.
Scientists are not sure exactly how the huge hole was formed, which is the ninth observed in that region since 2013.
Initial theories about the first crater were related to the fact that it was discovered near an oil and gas field on the Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia, but then spread to possible meteorite strikes, UFO landings, and the collapse of secret underground military depots.
Although scientists now believe that the giant hole is linked to a methane explosion – which could be the result of higher temperatures in the region – there is still much more that researchers do not know.
“Currently, there is no single accepted theory about how these complex phenomena are formed,” said Evgeny Chuvilin, a leading scientific researcher at a center at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, who visited the site of the latest crater to study its properties.
“It is possible for them to form over the years, but it is difficult to estimate the numbers. Since craters usually appear in uninhabited and mostly untouched parts of the Arctic, there is often no one to see and report them,” Chuvilin said.
Even now, he says, craters are mostly found by chance during routine, unscientific helicopter flights or found by cattle breeders and reindeer hunters.
Permafrost, which covers two-thirds of Russia’s territory, is a huge natural reservoir of methane, a powerful gas, and the recent hot summers, including the one in 2020, may have played a major role in the region’s creation of these craters, scientists believe.
Chuvilin and his team are among the few scientists who have descended into one of these craters to investigate how it originated and where the gas that causes them comes from.
Access to the craters must be done with climbing equipment, and it is limited in time – craters turn into lakes within two years of formation.
Scientists took samples of ice, soil, as well as ice from the edge of the hole that appeared in 2017 after it was discovered by biologists who were in the area observing falcon nesting.
After reports from the biologists, researchers observed the hole by drones six months later.