Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumScientists Got A Close-Up View Of That Mysterious Siberian Crater Here's What They Found{IMAGES}
http://www.businessinsider.com/mysterious-crater-found-in-siberia-2014-7When a helicopter discovered a mysterious giant crater on the Yamal Peninsula of Siberia, a place referred to as "the end of the world," speculation was rampant. People suggested it could have been caused by a meteorite, an underground explosion related to nearby natural gas fields, or even something more ominous or extra-terrestrial.
The crater looks almost too incredible to be real, but researchers finally made their way there on July 16 and it most certainly is the real thing. But even though the expedition revealed more information, the exact cause of the crater is still being determined.
Here's what it looks like from a helicopter:
Some think the crater might have been formed by a "pingo" a geological feature found in areas with permafrost like the Yamal Peninsula.
PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)Peeps in FL know all about them.
DallasNE
(7,402 posts)Because of the debris and with the erosion it looks to not be real recent.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)the heat of whatever blew out did that.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)That's weird...great gif, X!
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Tyrs WolfDaemon
(2,289 posts)Thanks to global warming, this one popped up too hard and flew out into space.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)tridim
(45,358 posts)Seems like a basic thing to do.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)FogerRox
(13,211 posts)marked50
(1,364 posts)mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)and needed a bigger hole.
DirtyDawg
(802 posts)...suck enough viscous, black, liquid from beneath the earth's surface...or if you burst enough holes (aka fracking) in the earth's crust (designed to keep stuff encapsulated), there's no damned telling what the 'earth's' reaction may be. Sink holes (of Biblical proportions)...earthquakes along newly created 'fault lines'...? There's even a line of thinking that we have been burning - and breathing - fossil fuel for so long that we have converted mankind into nothing but a bunch of 'lizard-brained', hate-filled, a-holes.
JayhawkSD
(3,163 posts)or at least not directly so, since this thing is thousands of miles from any oil recovery operations. Indirectly, perhaps, as it may very well be linked to global warming, but the global warming is a result of burning fossil fuels, not removing them from the earth.
So, caused by drilling and fracking: sinkhiles and earthquakes? Sure, no real doubt about it. But this thing? Probably not.
tclambert
(11,084 posts)the bubble pops through the top layer just like that. Phloop. As the permafrost gets slushy, we may see a lot more Slurpee bubbles like this. In other words, it's all a hoax perpetrated by Al Gore because he hates oil companies.
NickB79
(19,219 posts)Definitely looks like something exploded upwards, not sunk down, given the debris field.
pediatricmedic
(397 posts)They said it was about 2/3 filled with ice at the bottom. A very strange geological formation to say the least.
NickB79
(19,219 posts)Over the past couple of days, scientists were able to probe the crater.
There is nothing mysterious here, Andrey Plekhanov, a researcher, told the Siberian Times. It is simply Mother Natures law with its internal pressure and changes in temperatures.
Plekhanov added: For now we can say for sure that under the influence of internal processes there was an ejection in the permafrost.
nikto
(3,284 posts)Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)You first!
defacto7
(13,485 posts)gives the impression that there is a lake just below the lighter colored rings. But if you look at the other pics and especially one of the pics on the link that is not displayed in the OP you can see that it is not. It's a darker colored wall slanting outward and continuing much deeper into darkness and we can't see the bottom from these images. The moving helicopter video I think shows reflections in the window.
So I think what we see in these images is a hole going much further down than it looks. There may be a lake down there but I don't think you can see it from these images.
Just my 2 cents.
added: In one image it looks like there is an even darker deeper slightly smaller hole angled maybe 20ᵒ from the lowest area visible.