The earth is quite literally opening up and swallowing up a few things along the way. It turns out that a Russian TV crew flying over the Siberian tundra this summer has spotted what is a massive crater that has mysteriously opened up. Scientists aren’t sure why this has happened and it turns out this is the ninth such crater that has been spotted in the region since 2013. It isn’t just any small crater though—this has been measured at around 100 feet deep and 20 meters wide. It is one of the largest, if not the largest of the nine craters that have appeared so far in the regions of the Yamal Peninsula and the Gyda Peninsula.
“Right now, there is no single accepted theory on how these complex phenomena are formed,” says Evgeny Chuvilin, lead research scientist at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology’s Center for Hydrocarbon Recovery, to CNN. Chuvilin has visited the site of the newest crater to try and understand the reasons for why it was created. There are many theories that are floating around though, since the first such mysterious discovery in 2013—and these include meteorite impact, UFOs landing on the site and activities at the underground military storage facilities in the region. None of these theories have been confirmed. Last month, the RAS Institute of Oil and Gas Problems along with the local authorities in Yamal, conducted a major expedition to the newly formed crater.
Reports now indicate that this could have been formed due to the build-up of methane gas, caused by the global warming in the region, which had led to warmer summers. Large parts of this region remain uninhabited and there may yet be more mysterious craters that remain undiscovered. It is believed that it takes about two years for these craters to turn into lakes.
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