Its a cover-up they have been breeding giant gofers
MYSTERIOUS Siberia CRATER: ALIENS or METEOR not involved, officials insist
A huge, enigmatic crater which has suddenly appeared in a remote region of Siberia was definitely not caused by an unidentified object falling from space, the Russian authorities insist. The mysterious crater seen from a passing helicopter. Credit: Konstantin Nikolaev "We can definitely say that it is not a meteorite. No …
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Friday 18th July 2014 12:38 GMT John Riddoch
Re: Giant Gofers
Sinkhole was my first thought, but that doesn't account for the debris round the hole. The idea of some trapped gas underground exploding makes more sense, it would explain the debris round the hole and its depth.
Certainly it doesn't look like a normal impact crater, it's too deep for that.
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Friday 18th July 2014 12:06 GMT Julz
These a fair amount of data here:
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/first-pictures-from-inside-the-crater-at-the-end-of-the-world/
Reminds me of an Edward De Bono lateral thought problem. My first stab would be a plug of ice forced up through the soil; possibly by gas pressure.
p.s. If you look at the the final video you can see a number of small circular lakes as the helicopter comes to land which could be holes like this one but eroded and filled with water over a period of time.
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Friday 18th July 2014 17:05 GMT Marshalltown
Size
The pilot and passenger who originally found it estimated a diameter of 870 meters. As to cause, were I to speculate I would suggest pressurized methane beneath permafrost, with failure when pressure exceeded the strength of the permafrost. You can pick either melting permafrost or increasing methane and keep both sides of the GW debate happy.
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Friday 18th July 2014 12:15 GMT Perpetual Cyclist
A bit of a clue - it is less than 20 miles from a major gas drilling site. I don't know if they employ fracking. If you look at a wider view of the site, for example on google earth, it looks like a moonscape of cratered permafrost.
Explosive release of methane expelled from methane hydrates or melting permafrost, as a result of high summer temperatures. Possibly, build-up of gas seeping from lower level gas deposits trapped under the surface layer of permafrost, erupting like a gas geyser.
Consistent with, but not proof of, global climate change.
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Friday 18th July 2014 18:40 GMT Don Jefe
This big fucking hole is consistent with a big fucking hole. That much is certain. Beyond that it's consistent with a lot of things.
A big hole like this is consistent with, but not proof of, the Ninth Seal of Y'Gloth being washed in the menstrual blood of a virgin Laplander born under a Sulphur Moon as the final element in awakening Cthulhu, Lord of Silence, to rend in twain the Angelic Gates imprisoning Leviathan and begin the March of 'The Not'.
The big hole is certainly interesting, but you're melding a number of issues together and causing you unnecessary concern, and leading your thoughts in the wrong direction. Regardless of your beliefs/feelings/happy ignorance, you're doing yourself, and others, a disservice with crazy talk. There are a lot of questions and concerns about fracking, there's no doubt. As it stands right now I have declined to lease my property in Western Pennsylvania because as an Engineer I'm not satisfied with the information that's presently available. I'm not saying anything beyond I want to know more. It's far too early for anyone to have valid information regarding the mega-fracking projects. This is a time for watching, not acting.
But when you pop off with factually limited commentary like that you're giving the 'other side' ammunition; that's pretty dumb. You can't draw corollaries between the pockmarked surface and the Big Hole. The not Big Hole and other undulations in the permafrost are a natural function of permafrost. It looks solid and it feels solid (and cold) but it's actually a very delicate thing that a few research projects I'm aware of are studying permafrost as a model in chaotic numbers theories.
Permafrost is kind of like a box packing peanuts. It fills a void, but is not very dense. Permafrost is a lattice work of solids like rocks and dirt with the spaces in between filled with ice. Natural disturbances in the Earth (tectonic movements for example) don't have to be strong enough to move the solids in the lattice, just disturb the ice enough to allow some solids to move. Gravity, being impervious to the cold, still works though, so the solids drop onto solids below and that chain reaction occurs until the solids encounter a space where the lattice can support the new solids.
Less common, but extra cool, is ice 'lensing' where, for example, a rock on the surface is heated sufficiently by the Sun to partially melt the snow and ice it is resting on (it really doesn't take much) and a sudden temperature drop (very common) 'flash freezes' the melted snow/ice. It can create a surprisingly clear lens that let's sunlight beneath the surface of the snow/ice. The resultant heat is then trapped in a very well insulated place thus being much more efficient at melting the ice above, and below. My previous paragraph deals with how the liberated solids behave.*
Incidentally, risks of melting the ice in the permafrost lattice is why buildings down in the Tundra and Steppe are built on stilts and, in big structures, air is pumped out from the underside of the buildings. The air trapped beneath an insulated building is more than sufficient to change an above grade building into a below grade bunker very quickly.
If you're interested in something neat, check out the heat pipes that support the Alyeska Pipeline in Alaska. There's something like 125,000 of those posts that support the pipeline. They transfer ground heat into the air to prevent it from destabilizing the permafrost and causing the pipeline to collapse. It's really cool.
Anyway, my point wasn't to be a dick (hope I didn't come off as one). I just thought it was important you knew that disturbances in permafrost are common, varied, and sometimes (like with the Big Hole) really bizarre. Jumping straight to a commercial culprit (any culprit beyond 'nature' really) without understanding other naturally occurring possibilities first isn't ever going to result in factual answers (factual being, I assume, what you prefer).
*That lensing effect I mentioned earlier is a very, very cool thing. When we still had a field office in Dead Horse, Alaska the phenomenon would sometimes occur when exhaust from a piece of equipment left idling would partially thaw the ice and would instantly freeze again when the equipment was moved. It sometimes created a startlingly clear window through the ice. Sometimes even far enough down to see the road we drove on in the summer. Very cool.
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Friday 18th July 2014 12:28 GMT Jefe Mixtli
Pingo!!
What they are almost certainly seeing is a melted PINGO. In areas of permafrost (like most of Canada) the ice underground can form hills up to a 1000ft high. They are basically a big chunk of ice covered in soil.
If the temperature in the are warms enough, the ice melt and you end up with a crater full of water. You can see an almost identical feature here:
http://icecubicle.net/2010/03/24/phenom-pingos-of-the-far-north/
http://icecubicle.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/pingo-ice-lens-shattered.jpg
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Saturday 19th July 2014 07:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Pingo!!
Are you sure it is ejecta? If it was a collapsed pingo, is it possible that there may be collapse both in and out as the collapse happened. I imagine it would be a pretty unstable and unpredictable process taking an unknown length of time. Could be dramatic in seconds, or could take days as a gradual slump with rocks rolling all over the shop. As to vegetation, it takes a while for vegetation to colonise the ground exposed by the collapse/explosion.
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Friday 18th July 2014 12:33 GMT russell 6
Boring answer
Could it be a collapsed Pingo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo
The area is full of them. Not sure of the underlying geology in that neck of the woods but if it is a limestone area and the permafrost has been gradually melting, it would eat away at the rock under the iceplug. Could have caused the Pingo to collapse in on itself, creating a giant borehole at the same time. Any takers?
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Friday 18th July 2014 19:01 GMT Don Jefe
Re: Great Old Ones incoming
Worship Cthulhu. Make sacrifice unto Cthulhu. Venerate Cthulhu. Obey Cthulhu. Fear Cthulhu. Give unto Cthulhu willingly and long for the eternal silence and peace to be found in the darkness of His eternal embrace.
Do not blame, accuse, doubt Cthulhu. Seek not to chastise Cthulhu. Lest yours will be the eternal screaming of your soul and the reek of the burning flesh from all you know and love. Yea, transgress not against The Child of Light and Father of Despair would ye hope for peace eternal when the rude clay imprisoning your True Being is destroyed.
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Friday 18th July 2014 14:09 GMT Rocksalt
Not an explosion
if you look at the picture carefully and take a minute to think what physical process might have been in play to cause the cratering of this, plus the depth of the whole, plus the fact that there is little ejecta around the outside of the crater.... this is either a slow drill hole or something else that has physically bored its way in from a vertical position.. that's up and down to you rednecks :P
the second picture shows inside the shaft... it looks pretty smooth, to a uniform tooth has chewed away from vertical up heading down, although the hole doesn't look uniformly circular that might be due to angle, light and camera...
Note the blacked inner portion of the crater prime... the gradient colours from inside ( dark black ) to outside to crate walls ( light cream coloured) this show that something bored down and ejected up in a screw fashion internal debris... however, the colours do not match ( maybe dryness or moisture content issues here ?) it looks like the rock/soil was subjected to some heat AFTER the crater was formed, not at the point of penetration.
Anyone got any ideas ?
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Saturday 19th July 2014 02:22 GMT Charles Manning
Re: Not an explosion
>Anyone got any ideas ?
The Russians think it has been there for 2 years, so it is feasible that other ejecta has been eroded/disolved.
It is also feasible that this is a sink hole and the crud around the side is due to materials that have precipitated over the last two years (eg. gases coming out, reacing with the air/water and precipitating.).
Not sure I but the explosion theory.
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Friday 18th July 2014 18:03 GMT Gotcha Lookin
Gas buildup might explain the Noatak, Alaska, quake storm ...
Take a look at the USGS earthquake archive for July 17-18, 2014: Noatak, Alaska, located at 67°34′19″N 162°58′30″W, is under siege this Summer from low-to-moderate magnitude quake storms. Methane gas build-up and release might explain this Summer's high frequency of low magnitude quakes in the warming Arctic tundra region. That, or a lot of MUTOs with very big claws. Or, more likely, wild cat oil and gas drillers working for BP.
3.0 34km ENE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-07-18 08:12:02 UTC-04:00 10.8 km
4.6 49km ENE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-07-18 01:33:25 UTC-04:00 5.0 km
3.4 45km E of Noatak, Alaska 2014-07-18 01:30:01 UTC-04:00 16.5 km
3.7 41km E of Noatak, Alaska 2014-07-18 00:31:53 UTC-04:00 21.7 km
3.3 54km E of Noatak, Alaska 2014-07-18 00:29:35 UTC-04:00 6.4 km
3.7 44km ENE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-07-17 23:42:36 UTC-04:00 16.5 km
3.0 55km E of Noatak, Alaska 2014-07-17 22:29:24 UTC-04:00 7.1 km
4.1 46km ENE of Noatak, Alaska 2014-07-17 22:01:45 UTC-04:00 15.2 km
4.2 34km E of Noatak, Alaska 2014-07-17 22:00:45 UTC-04:00 10.0 km
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Friday 18th July 2014 18:04 GMT WillyDee
The Beginning of the Beginning
It was obviously created by a giant mole mutated by the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown and subsequent radioactive contamination across Russia and the rest of the world. You can't say I didn't warn you that this would happen. And this is just the beginning.
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Monday 21st July 2014 05:58 GMT Jos
Re: What does "huge" mean?
From the link posted earlier:
'If we try to measure diameter together with soil emission, the so-called parapet, then the diameter is up to sixty meters.
'The crater is from 50 to 70 metres deep'.
Reposting: http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/first-pictures-from-inside-the-crater-at-the-end-of-the-world/
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Saturday 19th July 2014 16:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re. Siberian Death Worm
Maybe it was actually made by a black hole?
Just saying, a small BH would cause a sizable crater and if the entry point was in the ocean (likely) then we might not have seen it.
Mini BHs have been seen on global seismic data before as synchronous quakes and the event horizon might have been displaced into a disk due to subterranean mirror matter from the Tunguska event.
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Monday 21st July 2014 04:29 GMT Wzrd1
OK, reality check here
In my first three minutes of research, upon learning of this recent hole in the ground, I learned some interesting facts.
First, it's a near-permafrost area. Near, not permafrost.
Second, it's an area with a decent amount of water in the ground and soil.
Third, the area is lousy with natural gas.
Fourth, the area is lousy with shallow methane deposits from decompsition.
Add point three and four together, as natural gas and methane are pretty much the same thing (there's some very modest differences, but it's in dilutant gasses for the most part, isotopes being the larger part).
What one geologist suggested seems likely.
A methane bubble formed long ago. Ice and water did their thing, melting ice freed its "cap" and let it vent as a big bubble of fart gas from hell.
The rest is "mystery".
There's no hint of conflgration. There's no hint of detonation. There's less than no hint of impact, vaporization, photon torpedoes, phasers, disruptors or anything else mythical.
Only earth tossed about by modest pressure and nothing heated/burned.
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Monday 21st July 2014 14:41 GMT Richard Cranium
Some uneducated reasoning...
The ejected waste we can see looks far less than the volume of the hole.
The distribution of the waste doesn't look much like that left over from an explosion, it's all very close to the hole. So try this for a hypothesis:
Forget about explosions, a relatively slow acting underground force has forced a body of ice to move upwards pushing aside the topsoil. Once exposed to warmer temperature the ice has melted leaving the lake at the bottom (and doubtless some water escaped hence the loss of volume). The "missing" material from the hole is just ice.
Perhaps it was historically a lake, not unlike some of those others in the area but froze and became covered in topsoil but recently something has caused the ice of that frozen lake to move upward.
Either that or when the aliens landed they needed a source of water so they dug a well.
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Thursday 24th July 2014 11:18 GMT dsuden
Global warming, of course!
If I were to believe the reports these days, I might be persuaded that EVERYTHING is the result of global warming. It's stunning how far this has gone. It's permeating our entire culture.
I would be willing to wager that you could take any phenomenon, natural or otherwise, provide it to a greenatologist, and he/she would handily produce a half dozen ways it could be directly related to global warming.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
