7 Methane Eruption Craters Confirmed In Siberia; Unofficial Count Between 20 And 30
The ground smoked for hours. Then, with a great flash and an enormous boom, the land exploded. When the smoke cleared, all that was left was a great, black hole. Ejected earth lay scattered around it — sheer sides plunging into the permafrost like some gigantic, gaping gun barrel. This was the scene last summer in Yamal, Siberia — a region of extreme northern Russia.
Speculation about the cause of this mysterious hole became rampant. It looked like a sink hole, except for the ejected material surrounding it. Some said it was a pingo. But pingos weren’t known to form due to explosions.
Teams of scientists rapidly descended upon the hole. And there they found high readings of methane at the hole’s base — in the range of 10% concentration, which is a very explosive level for the gas. At the base of the hole they also found evidence of hydrate. A form of frozen water-methane that is quite unstable unless kept under high pressure and low temperature.
The initial conclusion of the Russian scientists was that relic hydrate sealed beneath the previously flooded Siberian permafrost had been destabilized. Eventually reaching an explosive concentration, it then erupted from the ground. Discovery of this methane crater spurred a sweep of the area. Almost immediately, two other craters with similar features were discovered. And throughout fall and winter, both ground searches and satellite reconnaissance identified still more.
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Now, according to recent reports in the Siberian Times, a total of seven craters with features similar to the Yamal eruption have been pinpointed by observers. Just one of these craters (shown above) hosted about 20 smaller ‘baby craters’ surrounding it. In this instance, a large methane store below the permafrost is thought to have explosively displaced a shot-gun pattern of frozen soil sections before filling with water.
EDIT
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/arctic-methane-monster-shows-growing-eruption-number-of-global-warming-induced-craters-now-estimated-at-20-30/
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Science Rags are great. Don't be put off if you don't get an article or two, just learn more of what you understand and the rest starts to fill it'self in.
at every point. We have methane erupting from the seafloor now bubbling up through the ocean filling up the atmosphere. Tell you what, any place with perma frost that you can cap and collect, be my guest.
PS.. it's methane gas trapped in permafrost. It's the by product of vegetative and animal mass from pre historic times trapped in Ice. Hint, the prehistoric times lasted millions of years, there's a lot of carbon there.
