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More Giant Craters Appear In Siberia, Scientists Nervous To Investigate
In the middle of last summer came news of a bizarre occurrence no one could explain. Seemingly out of nowhere, a massive crater appeared in one of the planet's most inhospitable lands. Early estimates said the crater, nestled in a land called "the ends of the Earth" where temperatures can sink far below zero, yawned nearly 30 metres in diameter.
One of the craters in Siberia's so-called "ends of the earth"
The saga deepened. The Siberian crater wasn't alone. There were two more, ratcheting up the tension in a drama that hit its climax as a probable explanation surfaced. Climate change had thawed the permafrost, which had caused methane trapped inside the icy ground to explode. "Gas pressure increased until it was high enough to push away the overlaying layers in a powerful injection, forming the crater," one German scientist said at the time.
Video of the craters...
* * *
Now, however, as The Sydney Morning herald reports, researchers fear there are more craters than anyone knew — and the repercussions could be huge...
Russian scientists have now spotted a total of seven craters, five of which are in the Yamal Peninsula. Two of those holes have since turned into lakes. And one giant crater is rimmed by a ring of at least 20 mini-craters, the Siberian Times reported. Dozens more Siberian craters are likely still out there, said Moscow scientist Vasily Bogoyavlensky of the Oil and Gas Research Institute, calling for an "urgent" investigation.
He fears that if temperatures continue to rise — and they were five degrees higher than average in 2012 and 2013 — more craters will emerge in an area awash in gas fields vital to the national economy. "It is important not to scare people, but to understand that it is a very serious problem and we must research this," he told the Siberian Times. "We must research this phenomenon urgently, to prevent possible disasters."
...
These objects need to be studied, but it is rather dangerous for the researchers," Bogoyavlensky told the Siberian Times. "We know that there can occur a series of gas emissions over an extended period of time, but we do not know exactly when they might happen. ... It is very risky, because no one can guarantee there would not be new emissions."
Making matters worse, the gas is extremely flammable. One of the methane bursts has already caught fire. Nearby residents in a town called Antipayuta say they recently saw a bright flash in the distance. "Probably the gas ignited," Bogoyavlensky said. "This shows us that such [an] explosion could be rather dangerous and destructive. Years of experience has shown that gas emissions can cause serious damage to drilling rigs, oil and gas fields and offshore pipelines."
When the news first broke last year, social media users pointed to everything from a meteorite to a stray missile to aliens to the Bermuda Triangle as possible causes. But the most plausible explanation seemed to be the explosive release of melting methane hydrate—an ice-like material frozen in the Arctic ground—thanks to global warming. But, as National Geographic reports, other theories are coming to light...
Now, scientists are arguing that the methane theory is unlikely, based on new satellite surveys released by Russian researchers that found dozens of new craters in Siberia.
"The jury is still out" on the cause of Siberia's craters, says Carolyn Ruppel, chief of the U.S. Geological Survey's Gas Hydrates Project. But she and other scientists say the new satellite mapping suggests another explanation that has to do with the rapid melting of ice cores called pingos.
A pingo is a plug of ice that forms near the surface over time and has a small mound or hill on top.
When an ice plug melts rapidly—as many have been, thanks to unseasonably warm temperatures in Siberia over the past year—it can cause part of the ground to collapse, forming a crater. But that process alone isn't enough to explain the ejected rocks that have been found around the rim of the craters, which suggest some sort of explosion.
Instead, Ruppel theorizes that the craters were formed by a sudden release of natural gas that had been stored in the permafrost but was kept under pressure by the weight of the pingo.
This theory is bolstered by the Russian satellite data, which show pingos—they appear as small mounds—in the exact positions where the craters later formed.
* * *
So in conclusion - "No one knows what is happening in these craters at the moment."
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So, lightning does strike twice in the same place?
You know we have geosynch satellites, right?
It's just a black hole eating the earth from the inside out....
let's keep Michelle Obama out of this.
Well when it all blows we can always blame Putin.
Oh for fuck sakes, this is nothing new. They're called Pingos and the landscape over there is littered with them.
Imagery date 4/9/2013
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/yamal-pingo-land.jpg
Thanks for the downvote.
A little more info on Pingos from the past.
You beat me to it!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/18/new-pictures-of-the-hole-in-yamal-...
Just a new 'Tyler', trying to take zh on a jaunt to Art Bell land.
I'm with czar Angelus on this. I'm amazed knucks is on here making an anecdotal argument about overfishing. I'm sorry but your horribly wrong. Fish yields are pathetic now compared to 200 years ago humans are using up the planet at a faster and faster rate. 8 billion people and counting and you think we havnt fucked the global environment? Silent spring happened, and we moved our pollution to china and the developing world. Where do they move their dirty production? How do you feed a planet when you must use intensive agriculture which is slowly making the soil infertile? Check out the garage patch in the pacific. Or the dead zones. Check out the results of the BP oil spill. See how little rainforest is left (and spare me the bs about how most of the worlds trees are in the boreal belt which is expanding, the biodiversity is worth more than the oxygen and wood). See destertification spreading in central asua and the sahel. See the sea of azov drying up. See the damage cause by invasive species to our crops but worse for natural ecosystems. Being unaware of how badly man is destroying the world makes you a fucking moron. The conspiracy is to cover up the costs of this shit, not to make it seem important.
The only environmental problem of relevance today is the extinction of so many species. Everything else is a distraction.
I doubt humans are in any way involved! /sarc
If the Khmer Vert would drop the global warming nonsense they could divert the money to real environmental problems, like over fishing.
The "garage patch in the pacific"? Is that where my fucking garage is that I don't have? No wonder they are so expensive.
Silent Spring? Would that be the Rockefeller Foundation, Club of Rome, etc funded and promoted book you are referring to?
Eat this handful of dioxin, then you'll have a use!
Pacific garbage patch? I call BS. I have not yet see a set of pictures proving it's existence. No satellite pix or aerial pix. The climate change folks must be pushing this BS.
Plankton produces most of the planet's oxygen, so hopefully the Japanese haven't fucked that up. The more co2 the better when it comes to plant life. Silent spring was a hoax, DDT is not harmful to humans and has zero deleterious effect on birds. Hundreds of millions dead around the globe due to mosquito born diseases. So mission accomplished for the eugenics crowd.
The Russians have to put all their newly acquired gold some place...
It's Putin's fault.
No...wait...It's Bush's fault.
Come on guys. This is just the start of a second flood basalt event. It happened before, you know that already. So it's just the second round of an enormous extinction event. But here is the good news. Cockroaches are likely to survive. So if you are a cockroach, you're in for a treat. And if you are a human, well, you had a great time on earth - so don't complain, okay? Every great run ends somewhere.
This is my explanation. Now my 15 seconds are over. See you at the Burger Palace. I am out.
Wrong. Individual cockroaches die all the time, cockroachkind as a whole is likely never to go extinct. Its similar with small plants and animals (rats, weeds). Apparently its easier for an ecosystem to suppport a million rats than a single elephant.
So what you are saying is Bernanke and Yellen will repopulate the Earth?
God, please just hit the Earth with a comet that shatters the planet in two if that is the case.
According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, EVERY organism will go extinct.
I love your comments.
I'm your silent partner.
Is that anything like Congresskind?
Apparently it is also easier for a million rats to support an elephant than for an elephant to support a million rats.
Just saying.
Study them - for what reason other than curiosity? Nobody will be able to prevent them.
If it is for the purpose of answering the question: "Are we all going to die?" - let me spare everyone the study costs; the answer is: yes.
You forgot to blame the CIA or the joos...
There's one under the NY Fed
Craters in Siberia are seriously the least of my concerns.
There is probably a massive supervolcano under siberia analogous to Yellowstone. Magma is heating the permafrost causing sinkholes which then explode once the frozen methane is released. Yellowstone has been more active lately and we have been seeing more massive undersea earthquakes.
Much of this is due to the weakening magnetic field and pole reversal underway. I wouldn't discount the near approach of the elliptical orbit of a companion star either. In 100k years the Earth will probably be a frozen snowball again.
Real science and cosmology shows most solar systems to be groups. It also shows regular cycles of supereruptions, ice ages, and extinctions. We are nearing that extinction cycle now. It may be 100 years or 10k years from now, but on the universal clock that is like the difference of one millisecond to the next.
Now we better understand why Russia is open to share those Siberian oil and gas fields with the Chinese.
Putin knows when to cut losses and fold hands.
I peeked out my window, no craters, no sinkholes, no ISIS, and colder than fuck. Everything I am being told to worry about just ain't happening here. So fuck it.
I mostly worry about the stuff I'm not told to worry about!
'cept for that drone.
Who needs more than one data point!
The Russians have 'acquired' a Klingon disruptor and are testing its capabilities on sheep!
Secret Chinese leach field.
Maybe the Red Chinese learned to stop shitting on the side of the road.
Like if Kim Kardashian's ass fell on ice
I think she would bounce from all of the silicone in it.
Your comment clicked a brain cell.
What happened to the Super Ball anyway?
http://www.wham-o.com/brands/superball.html
The Chosenites are sucking oil and gas from far away with special equipment!! They are stealing all the oil and gas. The holes are all that's left! They have a drill offshore with a 1000 Km horizontal drill bit!
Everybody seems to be overlooking the obvious. Could this not be volcanic activity of some type?
Western reporter asked the Russian who was doing the holes:
- Because hole so deep and round?
He replied:
- To put the NATO guys standing.
The reporter already itchy neck and mild diarrhea also questioned:
- What guys NATO?
The Russian patiently explained:
- If you put the lie guys, they produce methane quickly, there's no time to envazar.
If you put the guys standing with helmet, gas accumulates, we put a hose Gazpron and sends back Pros idiots who attacked us.
hehe.
Wow, a hole in the ground. Must be a slow news day.
Quick, more sanctions...
OMG. Fuck o Shima radiation has created giant rats tunneling out of the earth! Or locusts! I saw this in a movie once!
Is Earth farting ?
No, these are farts of yore.
So, when is china, to take possession?
timely gift
I can completely accept the concept that these 'craters' are being created by a process of subterranian gas pocket expulsion and topsoil collapse.
Without investigation of these sites whether or not this is the cause is debatable at best.
Even if the subterranian gas expulsions theory is backed by any evidence; whether or not this phenomena can be attributed to 'climate change' is questionable.
For all we know this is a relatively common natural occourence related to this specific geograhy.
I can think of ways of monitoring similar formations for signs of gas emission or seizmic activity that might indicate the extent of a localized geo-physical process such as is posited.
I can also imagine testing the theory of gas emission and related topsoil cratering by creating a localized alteration in the temperature of a pinga in order to accelerate the proposed localized warming trigger for the theorized pinga melt and underlying gas pocket de-stabilization process... This might be quite dangerous in practice as the gasses released may be toxic, flamable, or cause sonic booms in addition to violent destabilization of the surrounding geography....
Gophers. Really, really big gophers.
it was rumored guys in the space station saw Bill Murray roaming around the Siberian outback this past few months.
Scientists: Oh, it is so dangerous!
Me: That's what fricking drones are for you morons! This is an appropriate use of drones!
Time for a fleet of drones.
No Craters without Representation - it's my human right.
Methane melts..real doom folks
This is the result of rampant QE. QE causes bubbles to form. When the bubbles percolate to the surface, they blow up and leave holes. This is why central bankers and Keynesian theorists are always found with giant holes.
There, solved the mystery.
Where do you think the material to create lava comes from?
Liquid hot mag-ma.
Answer: The Earth Sucks!
"5 degrees higher than average" is still -30C. It needs to be >35 degrees higher than average for the permafrost in Siberia to melt.
Just one more thing falsely attributed to our global boogey-man "climate change".
Plekhanov and his team believe that it is linked to the abnormally hot Yamal summers of 2012 and 2013, which were warmer than usual by an average of about 5°C. As temperatures rose, the researchers suggest, permafrost thawed and collapsed, releasing methane that had been trapped in the icy ground.
Other researchers argue that long-term global warming might be to blame — and that a slow and steady thaw in the region could have been enough to free a burst of methane and create such a big crater. Over the past 20 years, permafrost at a depth of 20 metres has warmed by about 2°C, driven by rising air temperatures1, notes Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten, a geochemist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Potsdam, Germany.
Hubberten speculates that a thick layer of ice on top of the soil at the Yamal crater site trapped methane released by thawing permafrost. “Gas pressure increased until it was high enough to push away the overlying layers in a powerful injection, forming the crater,” he says. Hubberten says that he has never before seen a crater similar to the Yamal crater in the Arctic.
Larry Hinzman, a permafrost hydrologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and director of the International Arctic Research Center, says that such craters could become more common in permafrost areas as the region heats up.
http://www.nature.com/news/mysterious-siberian-crater-attributed-to-meth...
Clathrates become unstable at a much lower temperature than that of melting ice.
Average -5C in Jan...but 17C in July.
Just one more thing deniers can't quite seem to get right.
25% of Americans are not aware that the earth orbits the sun.
They have no problem denying climate change though.
I guess they can't figure out why it's warmer in summer than winter. Maybe God turns down the burner a bit!
People who think they have the right to tell others how to live their lives deny the reality of evolution!
We're fucked!
Those denying evolution have merely not experienced the phenomenon for themselves or their loved ones.
I can *almost* forgive them; it's difficult to think rationally with the Koch brothers screaming BS in your ear.
Hollly Wood writerluv/zh
If you see "this" being televised, it time to wrap things up - since "This Game is Over".
http://www.virginmedia.com/images/landmarkdestruction-fantastic-four-590...You should be able to start seeing something very large orbiting us... ^_^
"No one knows what is happening until it's almost over. On a long enough timeline..."
FTFY
Russian crop circles works for me - or - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Beneath_the_Earth
It's all Putin's fault. BBC says so
Those are where COMMON SENSE has gone in this crazy fucking world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otdHbA4GlSI
The EARTH is FEMALE. Mother earth is entering Estrus phase, note red tides of late? And, She's about to get PHUKKED HARD while we observe. Shit, I'm gonna turn my head cause I was raised Catholic-Christian.
I feel for all you perverts that just have to watch...
Poco Say So!
Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time
For y'all have knocked her up
I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe
I was not offended for I knew I had to rise above it all
Or drown in my own shit
Come on Maggot Brain
Go on Maggot Brain
-- Funkadelic [Hazel; Clinton]
Since we appear to be theorizing about this alleged event, I'll offer a theory:
Perhaps because the vibratory frequency level of the earth is increasing, demonic entities and other low vibration frequency entities are finding it increasing difficult to remain on this planet due to the compression effects of increasing frequency levels. So they are hauling demonic ass away from here.
In short, the parasites are abandoning the host.
Got my 10 gallon mylar-lined tin foil hat fimly affixed upon my head.
Usually, crystals, and the word quantum, are involved in explanations like this.
Belt and Braces! You super prepper, you.
Fukashima has created a giant Godzilla that is burrowing all these tunnels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJoy_0dJEjY
History shows again and again
How nature points up the folly of men
Mylar uses aluminizing, not real tin.
Won't block the waves as well.
Thanks for the tip. Think I'll re-line it with gold foil. Coupled with my Faraday backpack I'll be totally impervious to the bozo beams enamating from the moon Luna'tic.
You can't block out those pesky neutrinos!
True. However I can mitigate their effects with regular doses of Viagra.
Bullish. BTF"D".
Omsk bird?
NO more games Donald! Shit or get off the pot!
I'll vote for you if you have the BALLS enough to be a LEADER.
Global warming...hah, hah, hah. What a joke!
I thought the Commie globalists had changed it to Climate Change, just to cover their a$$es!
Fact is, humans tend to think in stable terms, and that a 50 or 70 year lifetime is a long time.
But in geologic terms, 70 years is nothing. So when strange things start happening on the planet, everyone goes nuts.
Start thinking in terms of millions of years, and these little holes (and whatever their cause), aren't even a blip on the timeline scale.
Plus, there's really nothing man can do about it. So there's that.
Al Gore proved there is something he can do about it.
Make money, and buy airplanes and mansions.
Its a secret defence plan by the new Greek goverment, that is where we will put the German economy and the EURO.
It seems that the effects are local, for whatever is the cause. Certainly can't be anything that has "global" in the name, then. Right?
this land is reactin
reactions
this land is the property of the rabbi.
i read it in the teachings of madonna the fallen and the 3 saturnic steps.
the sacred land of the jewisher is reactin
cryin if you will for its peeple
the heebrew
then again it could be just code passing over the many to the few
init
NYT published editorial blaming Putin
well, Putin was in on sinking the Titanic-I wouldnt put it past him on these
Silly fucking humans.
Almost certainly due to geothermal activity, of the same variety that is melting areas of the Antarctic. Cause could be tectonic, or change in distribution of high energy particles due to shifting polarity (think microwaves). It is certainly not due to more pickup trucks on the road.
Of course the global warming cultists are blaming this on their fairy tale theory.
Of course the deniers can't see the physical evidence from around the globe before their eyes.
It's too cold to leave the house.
Where does all the water vapor forming as snow over your head come from exactly? Couldn't be warming and precipitation.
George Bush did it.
You mean he had Cheney blow a hole in the ground?
He said blow.
thats so yesterday, now it's 'Putin did it'
Question:
How does a 5 degree temp rise above ground (if true) penetrate so far down through so much ice?
Ice is an excellent insulator; it's the same reason you can survive by making a tunnel in a snowbank.
You're thinking of snow. Snowflakes leave little aripockets around them which prevent heat transfer.
Ice conducts heat fairly well.
Air prevents heat transfer. LOL
You're a special kind of retard. How to you think foam works?
I'm well aware of how foam works and even that ice has a lower specific heat that air, but you're the one implying that air doesn't transfer heat, none of which changes the explanation of an insulating layer over permafrost above.
Full retard.
I know my oven sucks. Now I know why.
Can't they just fly a drone in it?
What a load of horse shit. A quick examination of the Yamal peninsula with Google Earth shows the entire area and indeed many other areas of the northern reaches of Siberia covered with round lakes. Apparently this not a new phenomonon but has been occuring for centuries if not millenia.
dunno, the stills have a CGI look about them-the arial looks fine though
effect of Fed Res sucking the world dry
Peter Bjorn and John - Dig A Little Deeper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ4Jbc0uo_M
Can you say FLUVIAL GEOMORPHOLOGY IN KARST?
I can!
It's the underground reptilians! I mean Al Gore! I mean chemtrails! I mean I mean... anything but the consequence of 300 years of atmospheric re-gassing...
7 degrees outside. When it's that cold, who the fuck is going to break into your garage and steal the lawn mower.
Did they think of sending a drone?
Crab people!
I know what they're for - the pit where we throw every politician, banker and economist.
was a sliver surfer spotted?
I'm not saying it was aliens.
But it was aliens.
Can't wait till scientist find that manmade global warming is actually caused by the use of iPhones and iPads and then the sheeple will have difficult decisions to make not to mention owners of AAPL.
Hate to break the news but manmade global warming as a consequence of CO2 emissions would encompass all forms of human industrialization, including i-phones.
That's where them there Iraqi weapons of mass distraction went.........
Alf's back ! , Hey Willy
I hate the fucking Khmer Vert as much as I hate neocons. Actually, I take that back. I hate them even worse. Why? The neocons, for all their evil, only killed millions. If the warmists are allowed to have their way, the death toll will be in the billions. They ask for nothing less than the end of civilization itself.
How?
By ending the use of carbon based energy, we immediately revert to an 18th century lifestyle. What does that mean? Well, at that level of development the world is capapble of supporting 1 billion people. What happens to the rest? Collateral damage?
But windmills and solar panels will save us! I've done the calculations. Under the best of cirumstances, you might, might collect enough energy from one device to make a copy of itself, leaving nothing left over. Think aluminum smelting is a low energy task? How about mining, refining, and aseembling silion wafers? Only an idiot child or someone impossibly shortsighted can think these are long term solutions.
The next time someone tells you you have to support the Global Warming Cause, ask yourself if you're willing to be part of genocide.
But let's suppose that's not what they really want. And let's also suppose that the worst predictions of global warming come true. The only way to end the use of carbon based energy is to create a world goverment, with it's own army, to enforce the new regulations. No, you say. We don't need to do that! You think China is willingly going to stop burning coal? India? Russia? What if they say no? You can either let them do it anyway, leaving the best efforts of the west neutralized, or you can start WWIII. Even if the global warming conjecture is true, surely it's preferrable to let things take their course instead of risking a nuclear exchange?
My last point: the United States is a net carbon sink. That is, the vegitation growing in the borders of the US absorbs more carbon dioxide than is produced by man within the borders of the US. In the face of that, the US isn't the problem. It's China. And you can't make them stop.
Yeah, without carbon energy, as in immediately stopping its use we would be pretty much as what the author of the Book of the Machines said would happen if machines were destroyed (in Erewhon I mean). 1 billion and a half could probably be sustained in the end, as it was before the beginning of the industrial age. But one should wonder if it was such a good thing to have more than that...
On the other hand, and considering the rates of species extinction nowadays don't look like a good omen for continuing with business as usual. After all, most if not all of the mass extinction events during geological history were brought by climate change. So you stop the carnage of a going back to 1 billion just to have everyone and everything else killed. Hm... tough choices, huh...
You just don't get it. This isn't about politics anymore. We couldn't stop this train if we did everything the hippies and Al Gore want us to. Physics does not fucking care what you think!
Please explain why you think the US is a net carbon sink...the US forests sink what .4Gt out of the 1.6Gt from using fossil fuels? Where does the rest go?
NO.
Completely wrong.
By supporting global warming you have killed us all. To pretend it is a hoax is to support more warming. It's real and it's world-ending.
Not a single action to reduce CO2 & methane expulsion is bad for us. Just make cleaner burning fuel and use fuel cells and don't fucking burn any energy at all when you don't need to. It's that simple.
We didn't kill millions, duche, we will kill billions...think way bigger bro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnX-D4kkPOQ
Another theory?
Brain Dead
Guess where I'd like to see a few of these open ?
Reminds me of my prom date.
my co-worker's mom makes $87 an hour on the laptop . She has been without work for 8 months but last month her pay check was $15653 just working on the laptop for a few hours. try this website... www.globe-report.com
My brother's sister's father makes $50 an hour removing the grout from old peoples ass cracks. It really is beneficial to indigent old people who don't take care of themselves and it is great what to make money.
Send a check or money order to globe report inc, make out to cash in the amount of $30 dollars to get started today in the newly opened field of cleaning ass cracks.
lol, dafug man.
It's liquid propane pockets that have begun turning back into gas.
When in doubt the answer is always propane
It has to be either:
Fracking in Oklahoma, or
Putin's fault, or
Congress' fault, or
George W's fault.
Morlocks!!
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Third of all, you're a greedy little bastard.
Lastly, take a long walk off a short pier!
Thanks to be God, my cash are going now. Mr. Wilson (sex change of the fat one from Wilson Phillips) will give me much cash for little ass. Thank you praise be!
Herds of Wooly Mammoths coming out of hibernation
Looks like the one in Guatemala that scientists cannot explain either!
http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=358139&CategoryId=23558
I vote for disposing centers for future Putin political adversaries. May need a few thousand more, tho.