The area of Russia is said to be called,
ominously enough, the end of the world. And that's where researchers are headed
this week, to investigate a large crater whose appearance reportedly caught
scientists by surprise. The crater is estimated at 262 feet wide and is in the
northern Siberian area of Yamal.
The crater has been a magnet for attention and
speculation since aerial footage of it was posted online last week, showing a
gaping hole and what looks to be rocks and earth that exploded from within
it.
A team of scientists, including experts from
Russia's Center for the Study of the Arctic and the Cryosphere Institute of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, were reportedly heading to the site today to
investigate — and perhaps to debunk some of the theories about its
cause.
From The Siberian Times:
"The giant hole appeared close to a forest some
30 kilometers from Yamal's biggest gas field Bovanenkovo. Experts are confident
that a scientific explanation will be found for it and that it is not — as one
Web claim suggested — evidence 'of the arrival of a UFO craft' to the
planet."
The list of possible natural explanations for
the giant hole includes a meteorite strike and a gas explosion, or possibly an
eruption of underground ice.
The crater is in an area that "is one of the
most geologically young places on Earth," reports the From Quarks to Quasars blog. "It also happens to be extremely rich in gas. In fact,
it contains the largest natural gas
reservoir in all of Russia. ... In
places with such large concentrations of gas, it's not unusual for underground
explosions to rocket off. They occur only when under-soil ice melts and releases
a substantial amount of gas."
The Siberian Times says the name
Yamal roughly translates as "the end of the world." It adds that before the
crater was spotted, the Yamal area was mostly famous for its reindeer and its
birds, and for holding the ancient remains of several woolly
mammoths.
Giant sinkhole in Russia's north puzzles
scientists
Pravda
YouTube screencap
Russian scientists
conducted a primary examination of the giant sinkhole in the Yamal-Nenets
Autonomous District. The video of the bizarre
hole on YouTube has received more than two million views in several days. As a
result of the examination, the scientists concluded that the crater was of
natural origin and did not appear either as a result of a manmade impact or the
fall of a meteorite, the website of the regional government said.
There
was no dangerous radiation detected on the site of the giant sinkhole. The
scientists, who arrived to examine the sinkhole on the instructions of the
regional governor Dmitry Kobylkin, said that the sinkhole appeared "as a result
of a natural phenomenon, the nature of which is impossible to establish yet,"
the report said.
"There is no terrestrial impact here, - Marina Leibman,
a member of the scientific mission, chief researcher at the Institute of Earth's
Cryosphere said. - A careful examination showed that there was no trace of human
presence on the site of the object. Assumptions about a hot meteorite are also
groundless, otherwise, there would have been traces of charred rock," the
specialist said.
In
pictures: Mystery of giant sinkhole in
Russia's Yamal
on this
site, there was a release of material from insides of the earth, - the scientist
said. - I do not think that it was accompanied with an explosion, because in
this case, high temperatures would have been required. This is purely a
mechanical ejection, which most likely occurred due to increased pressure at the
time, when some sort of a cavity was freezing and changing. Most likely, the
cavity was filled with swamp gas."
The diameter of the inner edge of the
crater is about 40 meters, and 60 meters on the outside. Fragments of rock were
scattered as a result of the emission on the square of 120 meters, senior
researcher of the Scientific Research Center of the Arctic, Andrei Plekhanov
said.
To accurately determine the depth of the hole, one needs to resort
to the help of professional climbers, said the specialist, noting that
approaching the edge of the sinkhole was dangerous as the edges constantly
crumble.
Officials with the press service of the governor also rejected
the versions of manmade and meteorite impact. "Scientists believe that something
burst there like a bubble," the press service told Interfax.
"The
scientists say that the sinkhole is absolutely safe for people and does not
impede gas production in the region. In the vicinity of tens of kilometers,
there are no industrial facilities," officials added.
The video of the
giant sinkhole appeared on the Internet on July 10. In the description to the
video, its uploader, who shot the sinkhole while flying in a helicopter, said
that it was formed 30 kilometers from Bovanensky deposit. According to the
author of the video, the size of the sinkhole is so large that one can descend
into it on several Mi-8, without fearing to touch something."
The video
shows that the sinkhole is surrounded with vegetation. A closer look on the
territory around the object shows rocks scattered around the sinkhole, as it
usually happens during explosions. It was also said that there were no research
or exploration works conducted in the area of the sinkhole.
Pravda.Ru
(뒤늦게 산케이신문도 보도에 참여)
シベリアに出現した直径約６０メートルの巨大穴（ＡＰ）
ロシアのシベリアで地面に開いた直径約６０メートルもの巨大な穴が発見され、科学者らによる調査団が派遣される騒動になっている。ヤマロネネツ自治管区の永久凍土の平原にあり、上空から撮影された映像がユーチューブに投稿され、世界中で８００万回以上再生されている。
深さは不明。隕石（いんせき）落下説のほか、宇宙人や地底人の仕業との噂も飛び交ったが、ロシアの科学者によると、気温の上昇で凍土が溶けたか、メタンガスが地中の空洞に充満し爆発したかの説が有力という。
シベリアに出現した直径約６０メートルの巨大穴（ＡＰ）
シベリアに出現した直径約６０メートルの巨大穴（ＡＰ）
This frame grab made Wednesday, July 16, 2014,
shows a crater, discovered recently in the Yamal Peninsula, in Yamalo-Nenets
Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Russian scientists said Thursday July 17, 2014 that
they believe a 60-meter wide crater, discovered recently in far northern
Siberia, could be the result of changing temperatures in the region. Andrei
Plekhanov, a senior researcher at the Scientific Research Center of the Arctic,
traveled on Wednesday to the crater. Plekhanov said 80 percent of the crater
appeared to be made up of ice and that there were no traces of an explosion,
eliminating the possibility that a meteorite had struck the region. (AP
Photo/Associated Press Television)
