On the left bank of the Batagai River in Siberia lies the “world’s largest permafrost crater.” This giant tadpole-shaped gap in the green earth is known as the “Gateway to Hell.” The walls of the crater are as brittle as a cake, and every second it grows wider and deeper, swallowing the Earth and expanding. According to a recent study published in the journal, Geomorphology They found that the crater is expanding by 35 million cubic feet (1 million cubic meters) each year.
The Batagaika crater was first spotted in 1991 on classified satellite images. These images revealed a layer of permafrost that had been frozen for 650,000 years. The permafrost melted, releasing large amounts of methane gas, which formed the crater. Climate change has accelerated this process, and the crater is now releasing methane and other greenhouse gases at an alarming rate, continuously eroding parts of the Earth.
Understanding the Batagaika crater is a complex mystery. HowstuffworksRoger Michaelides, an assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, explained that Batagaika isn’t actually a crater. A crater is a small rock formed by a meteorite impact, a volcanic eruption, or some other natural or man-made explosion, such as a crater impact. Darvaza Gas CraterInstead, he noted, Batagaika is “a regressive thaw depression, in fact the largest in the world.”
The latest study, led by Alexander Khizhakov of Moscow State University, used satellite imagery to assess the crater’s growth on a two-dimensional scale, and used remote sensing and field data to create a 3D model to study the rate at which the permafrost is melting. The results were surprising.
The Batagaika mega-collapse’s cliff face, or headwall, is retreating at a rate of 40 feet (12 meters) per year due to thawing permafrost, according to the study. The collapsed section of the hillside, which drops 180 feet (55 meters) below the headwall, is also melting and subsiding rapidly. The amount of ice and sediment lost from the mega-collapse is “exceptionally high” due to the size of the depression, which will be more than 3,000 feet (990 meters) wide as of 2023, the study states.
The depression originally formed when forests around Batagaika were cut down during the Soviet era. The cuts changed the heat balance of the area, forming valleys along the slopes. “Once these valleys form, they can expand and grow as more permafrost thaws in subsequent summers. A larger surface area of exposed permafrost could accelerate this process and cause a mega-depression,” Michaelides said.
Michaelides adds that this type of formation is often a “positive feedback loop”: Every time permafrost thaws, bacteria break down the organic matter, releasing greenhouse gases like methane that were trapped inside. These gases increase heat in the atmosphere, causing more permafrost thawing, creating an infinite loop.
So as Siberia warms due to climate change, the Batagaika volcano is getting bigger. “In some areas, the crater is expanding at a rate of tens of meters per year,” Michaelides says. Researchers have known for some time that the crater was expanding, but this is the first time they’ve encountered the magnitude of the change in its size.
according to Live ScienceSince its collapse, the mega-collapse has released a mass equivalent to “more than 14 of the Great Pyramids of Giza.” “It’s quite possible that the Batagay mega-collapse will spread into the neighboring valleys, but this will probably be absorbed over the next 10 or 20 years,” said Nikita Tananaev, a senior scientist at the Melnikov Permafrost Institute in Yakutsk. Atlas ObscuraTananayev added that this massive flood water could pose a problem for the Batagay River if it were to flow into the river.
Batagaika volcano continues to expand, but researchers believe there is a limit to how wide and deep it can go, since only a few feet of permafrost remain in the crater. The melting ice has already reached the bedrock at the bottom, so it can’t expand any further, but the sides could still expand to some extent. “We expect only the expansion to occur around the periphery and on the upper slopes,” Kidzhakov said.
