Last week oil company passengers flying in a helicopter spotted and videotaped a mysterious crater located in a remote area of northern Siberia. The crater which measures 80-100 meters across, seems to have appeared over night. Authorities have puzzled over its origin, and once the video appeared on-line, wild speculations flared up across the Internet regarding its origin. Did a meteorite create it? Is it the site of a crashed alien spaceship? Could it be another Tunguska event? Or a sinkhole? Or simply the result from a huge release of natural gas?

A group of Russian scientists from Russia's Academy of Science and the State Scientific Center of Arctic Research finally reached the extremely isolated location on the appropriately named Yamal peninsula (Yamal means "end of the world"). The peninsula is home to reindeer and indigenous reindeer herders but sets atop a vast natural gas reservoir which means a gas belch might be the most likely cause. One of the scientists, Anna Kurchatova from the Sub-Arctic Scientific Research Centre, speculates that climate change and warming climate may be causing the permafrost in the area to melt and become unstable, and in the process popping like a Champagne cork under the high underground pressures. But the researchers won't jump to any conclusion; they've been busy examining the sudden phenomenon, scaling its walls, measuring its dimensions, and collecting water and soil samples. Satellite images will also be examined to see if the exact time of origin has been captured by orbiting cameras.

It will be interesting to see what their study reveals. I'm going with the internal forces theory - some sort of fiery gas burp probably caused it. In the meantime, the scientists have also been taking lots of photographs at the site, which can be viewed on the Siberian Times website.

SOURCES
Siberian Times story
Geology Page story