Right in the middle of the tundra in Siberia, on the Yamal Peninsula, is a crater.
A gigantic hole 25 meters in diameter and more than 30 meters deep.
It is called C17.
Because there are 16 others scattered in the region.
It was discovered by Andrey Umnikov, the director of the Russian Center of Arctic Development partnership
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in September 2020 during a helicopter flight. Until now, it was not known how this crater had formed.
We now know more thanks to the expedition of researchers from the Russian Skoltech institute.
This is the first time that scientists have managed to explore the interior of a crater in time before it has eroded or filled with water.
The team went there and even used a drone to study the inside of the crater.
"We were able to descend between 10 and 15 meters into the crater with the drone," explains Evgeny Chuvilin, senior researcher at the Institute of Science and Technology in Skolkovo.
A first which made it possible to gather precious information and to map the crater.
The images will serve as a basis for a 3D model.
We now know that if the ground exploded and formed this kind of crater, it is because of the methane which accumulated and which was released under the pressure.
“This kind of methane explosion is something new, something that we discovered very recently,” says Evgeny Chuvilin.
This expedition, for him and his colleagues, was “a unique experience”.
The formation of these craters is the symbol of climate change.
As temperatures rise, permafrost (or permafrost) melts.
However, this frozen ground is not supposed to melt.
It is a huge natural reservoir of methane.
The gas collects in underground cavities, expands and eventually pierces the ground and creates a huge explosion at the end of which only a crater remains.
"They grow quite quickly and then 'burst' like bubbles, releasing gas and forming these remarkable craters."
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, much more formidable than CO2 for trapping heat and warming the planet.
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All the light has not yet been shed on the origin of this gas which was supposed to remain locked forever under the surface of the earth, but the researcher can already affirm: “We have reason to believe that this deep gas played a role. a big role.
There is data suggesting that this crater is near a fault with an active ascending gas flow from the depths of the Earth ”.
There are already 16 other such craters in the region.
"Of course, crater number 17 will not be the last," predicts the researcher.
Indeed, climate change does not seem to be receding and therefore suggests the appearance of new gigantic holes in the Siberian tundra.
