Large crater appears at the ‘end of the world’, Siberian Times
“The striking puncture in the earth is believed to be up to 80 metres wide but its depth is not estimated yet. A scientific team has been sent to investigate the hole and is due to arrive at the scene on Wednesday.
The cause of its sudden appearance in Yamal – its name means the ‘end of the world’ in the far north of Siberia – is not yet known, though one scientific claim is that global warming may be to blame.
There is additionally speculation it could be caused by a space object – perhaps a meteorite – striking earth or that it is a sinkhole caused by collapsing rock beneath the hole caused by as yet unknown…
Anna Kurchatova from Sub-Arctic Scientific Research Centre thinks the crater was formed by a water, salt and gas mixture igniting an underground explosion, the result of global warming. She postulates that gas accumulated in ice mixed with sand beneath the surface, and that this was mixed with salt – some 10,000 years ago this area was a sea.
Global warming, causing an ‘alarming’ melt in the permafrost, released gas causing an effect like the popping of a Champagne bottle cork, she suggests.”
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