In October of 2013, a powerful explosion occurred within a remote Russian peninsula within the
Arctic Circle.
This explosion was immensely powerful, involving 180,000 pounds of explosive material, which
carved out of a 20 meters or 66 foot wide crater in a thick layer of limestone, with
the crater being a little more than 100 feet deep.
Yet, this was not caused by a detonation of military ordinance or a purposeful explosion
as a result of a mining operation.
As instead, the explosion which occurred was completely natural, not being directly caused
by human activity.
And, 4 years later, an even more powerful explosion occurred on the same section of
the peninsula, blasting out a 40 meter or 131 foot wide crater which also was unusually
deep.
These explosions are likely to become increasingly common within Russia's Yamal Peninsula, posing
a potential hazard to anyone within a several kilometer radius when they go off.
And, there are possibly hundreds of these ticking time bombs, which could go off without
much warning.
The root cause of these explosions that form large craters are not meteorite impacts or
volcanic eruptions but rather something completely different; natural gas explosions caused by
natural processes and not human interference.
So far, about 20 of these features have been discovered, the first of which was only identified
in 2014, being known as Yamal Crater.
For context, Russia's Yamal peninsula is located approximately 2,200 kilometers northeast of
Moscow.
From satellite, you can see numerous large circular lakes, representing a common feature
in once glaciated landscapes known as kettles.
This peninsula largely contains a series of sedimentary rocks including limestone and
sandstone that date to between 50 and 65 million years ago.
These rocks and the permafrost above them have acted as a trap for a world class natural
gas deposit.
As, the Yamal peninsula contains an estimated 5 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, accounting
for 1/200th of the entire planet's reserves.
While there is some natural gas underneath the sedimentary rock, it is not the only cause
of these explosions.
As, the permafrost itself is also a cause.
Around the planet, approximately 11% of the Earth's surface is covered by permafrost.
Areas with permafrost largely consist of a so-called active layer which freezes only
seasonally on top, and a permafrost layer which can stretch from 1 foot to more than
2,000 feet thick below it.
If you continue beneath the permafrost, the natural temperature increase which occurs
at progressively increasing depths becomes strong enough that the underlying rock does
not permantly freeze like permafrost does.
Under normal conditions, permafrost contains abundant organic material from large and microscopic
plant and animal life.
As the permafrost expands during colder periods, these organic materials are buried, meaning
they do not decompose at a high rate since they remain frozen in place.
However, during the last 40 years, the arctic circle has become on average 5 degrees fahrenheit
warmer.
As a result, the extent of permafrost around the planet has decreased, causing what used
to be uniform permafrost coverage in unusually cold regions to instead become only spotty.
Due to this process, what is known as a talik forms.
In the talik, microbes are able to go into the soil and begin decomposing the organic
materials.
This process releases significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, which go by
the chemical formulas CO2 and CH4.
These gasses for a period of time then remain trapped in the soil, unable to permeate upwards.
However, as the amount of gas packed into a small space continues to increase, so does
the pressure.
This eventually reaches a point that the gas can no longer be contained in the soil, causing
a section of ground overlying the gas to be pushed upwards.
Such uplift might only measure a centimeter or it could be more significant, but all of
it generally occurs in a timespan of 36 months or less before it explodes.
As the uplift continues, cracks begin to develop which eventually reach a patch of the highly
pressurized gas.
The gas then violently rushes upwards, but so much material is being released that it
causes a powerful explosion to occur, throwing many tons of rock high into the air.
After the explosion ends, weaker degassing might continue.
Since these craters are often deeper than they are wide, they often cut a hole in the
rock below the water table, causing the newly formed craters to eventually fill with a crater
lake.
Such explosions will only become more and more common as the years progress on the Yamal
peninsula as the region continues to warm.
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