Mysterious Pits Being Formed in Siberia: In 2014, scientists found a mysterious pits in Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula. It was about 30 meters wide and more than 50 meters deep. The things spread around clearly indicated that an explosion had taken place there. Since then, many more such mysterious craters have erupted from the surface of the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas. But the big question was why this thing is happening. While searching for the reason behind this mysterious pits, scientists explored many possibilities. Finally, a team of scientists unveiled its mystery.
Climate change and frozen soil:
While investigating its mystery, the role of factors ranging from global warming to permanent frost or permafrost was also investigated. Permafrost is the condition of soil in areas like Siberia when the temperature falls below the freezing point of water. Ana Morgado, a chemical engineer at the University of Cambridge, says that the huge amount of methane they release can have a big impact on global warming.
A strange explosion:
This gas explosion was found to have opened up a large cave-like structure in Siberia’s permafrost, and there was no sound of an explosion. But the methane gases it emitted certainly caused a stir around the world, and now a team from the United Kingdom and Spain has traced its source.
Not just a gas leak:
This phenomenon can occur under very specific circumstances, says Morgado. The team found that it’s not just bubbles forming or gas expanding out of melting permafrost due to warmer temperatures. Of course, that’s happening, but it wouldn’t be enough to cause such large, powerful explosions.
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There can only be one of two ways:
“There are only two ways an explosion can happen,” says Julian Cartwright, a geophysicist at the Spanish National Research Council. “Either there’s a chemical reaction, and you have an explosion, like dynamite going off, or you pump up your bicycle tire until it explodes. That’s physics.”
Some physical sources:
None of the explosions examined showed any light or combustion products that would indicate a chemical reaction. So the researchers concluded that there must be a physical source of the groundbreaking pressures.
How does an explosion play a role?
As the soil behind the permafrost warms, it expands downward, and fresh meltwater seeps through the permafrost. Normally, this fluctuation is shallow, but climate change is pushing it deeper into the ground. Here, the researchers said that it reaches a layer of salty water, but the substances in this layer start mixing with the things above, due to which the pressure creates cracks in the permafrost above.
Then there is an explosion:
The result is that methane gas is released rapidly like an explosion. Due to this, the sound of such an explosion is not heard but a large amount of methane definitely reaches the atmosphere. It is believed that cracks in the soil occur over a time frame of thousands of years, but the study found that the forces that cause methane explosions can speed up this process to happen within decades.
Thus, it coincides with the global warming that started in the 1980s. Morgado says, “This may be a very rare event. But the amount of methane being released can have a huge impact on global warming.” This research was published in Geophysical Research Letters.
