A 100-foot-wide permafrost crater in Siberia's Yamal Peninsula. REUTERS/Vladimir Pushkarev/Russian Centre of Arctic Exploration
Giant holes are popping up all over the frigid tundra of northern Russia, and no one is quite certain where they come from.
However, the Siberian Times reports that witnesses are now describing explosive events that may be connected to the appearance of these mysterious craters.
Reindeer herders spotted one of the first huge holes in 2013, in the region's Taimyr Peninsula. It was about 13 feet wide, nearly 330 feet deep, and — as they stumbled across their find — the men "were almost swallowed up by the crater," the Siberian Times wrote.
The herders never saw what made the hole, which has since grown to a whopping 230 feet wide and filled with water.
But villagers who live dozens of miles away are finally coming forward to say they heard and saw something strange shortly before the crater was found, according to the Russian news outlet:
[R]espected scientist Dr Vladimir Epifanov, the sole leading expert to so far visit the site, said: 'There is verbal information that residents of nearby villages - at a distance of 70-100 km [43-62 mi] - heard a sound like an explosion, and one of them watched a clear glow in the sky.'
Since the crater appeared in winter 2013, more have shown up — including a 100-foot-wide crater on Siberia's Yamal Peninsula, which a pilot first spotted n 2014. Lacking a better explanation, aliens and underground missiles were floated as possible theories, according to the Washington Post.
But the truth — which the new eyewitness reports may help support — is that the holes might come from a threat not even Mulder and Scully are equipped to handle: climate change.
Scientific American reports that Arctic zones are warming at a breakneck pace, and the summer of 2014 was warmer than average by an alarming 9 degrees Fahrenheit, according to another story in Nature. As a result, scientists at NOAA think that permafrost, the permanently frozen ground that covers the tundra, is starting to thaw in these warmer temperatures.
So how does frozen methane blow a 100-foot-wide hole in the ground?
Given low enough temperatures and high enough pressure, methane and water can freeze together into what’s called a "methane hydrate." Permafrost keeps everything bottled up but when it thaws, so does the hydrate. Methane is released as a gas, building up pressure — until the ground explodes.
Scientists gained more evidence for this theory after an expedition to the bottom of the crater. It revealed the air had an extraordinarily high concentration of methane.
http://www.techinsider.io/russian-exploding-permafrost-methane-craters-global-warming-2016-6
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