Witnessing the methane exploding in Siberia

 'As if The Earth Was Breathing': Witness Describes Siberia Crater Before Explosion

Newsweek,

7 September, 2020

A woman who visited a "heave mound" on Siberia's Arctic tundra before it exploded to form a huge crater said it was "as if the earth was breathing" and that the ground was shaking.

Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, Doctor of Engineering Sciences from the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Siberian Times the local woman had become interested in the unusual ground formation that had developed in the region and had been visiting the site daily.

"But on the day of [the] explosion she felt some tremor, she described it as if the earth was breathing," he is quoted as saying. "She quickly left the place just in time before it exploded. If she had shown more curiosity, she would have been killed by this explosion and we would have the first victim."

There are 17 identified funnels of exploded so-called ‘heave mounds’ recorded on the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas since the first ’crater’ known as C1 started the history of observations in summer 2014.

They are believed to be caused by the build up of methane gas in pockets of thawing permafrost under the surface; these swollen pingo-like formations then erupt with gas blowing off thick caps of soil, shooting out chunks of ice and soil as large as 150 cubic metres as happened in 2017 when the Seyakha pingo erupted.

The newest - number 17 on Russian scientists’ list - ‘crater’ appeared earlier this summer in an undisclosed location on the Yamal peninsula. 

It is currently 31 metres (102 ft) deep, although scientists believe that it was about 40 metres (131 ft) deep at the moment of eruption, with the bottom of the crater quickly covered by collapsing soil.

‘It was in our database as one of 7,185 permafrost heave mounds on the Yamal and Gydan peninsula.

'Five to six per cent of them are really dangerous’, said Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, who has recently returned from a major scientific expedition to study the recently erupted mound. 

The massive database of pingos is getting compiled thanks to satellite monitoring and regular helicopter expeditions. 

Currently several areas in the Arctic - namely the Seyakha area, the North-Tambey area, the South-Tambey field close to the village of Sabetta, and the West-Seyakha gas field - are on the list of ‘the most dangerous sites’ with the highest concentration of the pingo-like mounds.

The process of these mounds forming and exploding is now mostly clear to science, with researchers focusing on how to distinguish the dangerous mounds from the non-explosive ones, and, most importantly, on how to prevent future eruptions.

‘They can be cut open with gas being pumped out. It must be done very carefully, it is sappers’ work, as these phenomena can be called ‘gas mines’, Dr Bogoyavlensky told The Siberian Times. 

At the Seyakha crater, a local woman became fascinated with the bulging mound and visited it daily, he said. 

‘But on the day of explosion she felt some tremor, she described it las if the earth was breathing.

‘She quickly left the place just in time before it exploded. If she had shown more curiosity, she would have been killed by this explosion and we would have the first victim.’

At least three of the recorded eruptions had witnesses, who reported seeing the ignition. 

These were the Antipayuta crater (C3), the Seyakha crater (C11) and the Yerkuta crater (C12) eruptions. 

‘We believe the ignition was caused by electrostatic discharges, which adds to the danger of the mounds’, Vasily Bogoyavlensky said. 

According to Professor Bogoyavlensky and his team, the exploding mounds described as ‘pingo like features’ differ from classic pingos or bulgunnyakhs. 

Pingos usually form in the depressions of dried up lakes (khasyrei) and have an ice core which expands and makes them grow. 

In the formation of the pingo-like features in northern Siberia, the methane migrates from deeper layers through sub-vertical faults in thawed zones (cryopegs) to fill a cavity formed in permafrost. 

Usually such cavities are covered by a 7 to 9 metre thick seal of permafrost.

The volume of the chamber increases under the growing pressure from the gas and eventually blows up the seal with massive chunks of frozen rock and soil thrown as far as 900 metres from the epicentre. 

Video filmed by Anton Sinitsky in 2017 shows the Seyakha 'crater' with gas emission continuing months after the eruption

http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/more-than-300-sealed-craters-are-ticking-time-bombs-from-a-total-7000-plus-arctic-permafrost-mounds/

 

Giant methane craters discovered south of Svalbard

Giant gas craters discovered at the bottom of the Barents Sea

Sceince Nordic,

5 October, 2018

Researchers have found more than 100 craters in the seafloor near Bjørnøya, the southernmost island in the island archipelago of Svalbard. Some of these craters have a diameter of 1000 metres. The craters formed when pockets of gas hydrates exploded out of the seafloor (Illustration: Andreassen et al. 2017).

The otherwise flat sea floor between the island archipelago of Svalbard and Finnmark, Norway’s northernmost county, is pocked by massive craters that were only discovered in the 1990s.

Now, scientists at the Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrates, Environment and Climate (CAGE) at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway, have collected new geophysical data on the craters in the area.

But instead of finding just a few craters, researchers found hundreds of them. They range in size from 300 to 1000 metres in diameter. And they have been blown out of solid bedrock.

Methane gas blow-outs

The craters are what remain after a methane gas explosion. Or more correctly: gas blow-outs.

Methane gas chambers formed under the seabed during the last ice age. Up until the end of the ice age they were capped by a kilometres-thick layer of ice. They have also been kept in place by frozen methane gas, known as gas hydrates.

When the ice melted, the gas chambers collapsed one by one. The blow-outs may have occurred over a couple of days.

But these blow-outs must have involved enormous forces at the bottom of the Barents Sea, since the holes have been blasted out of solid bedrock. 

The researchers in Tromsø expect further blow-outs, as some gas chambers have not yet blown, and others are slowly building up pressure again.

Read More: Bacteria thrive on methane deep beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet

Mysterious giant holes in Siberia

Only a few years ago, reindeer hunters on the Jamal peninsula in northernmost Siberia also discovered several mysterious giant holes in the ground.

Russian scientists eventually determined that the cavities had been filled with methane gas and subsequently collapsed.

Karin Andreassen, a professor at UiT, thinks the Russians were correct in their assessment.

“Methane gas in Siberia is locked inside the permafrost. And there are frozen gas hydrates in the Barents Sea that ensure the gas is kept buried in the seabed,” she says.

Otherwise, the process is more or less the same, she said. When the permafrost or gas hydrates thaw, the methane can be released explosively in a gas blow-out.

Media reports described mysterious giant holes that were found in the tundra several years ago on the Jamal Peninsula in northern Siberia. Additional holes like these have appeared recently. We now know that the holes are likely from methane gas blow-outs, just like the craters that researchers have discovered in the Barents Sea. (Photo: Vasily Bogoyavlensky / AFP / NTB scanpix)

Andreassen and her colleagues published their results in scientific article in the journal Science last year that describes the craters in the seabed north of Norway and how they developed. The picture at the top of this article is from the article in Science.

Large blow-outs possible

Andreassen thinks there will be more large blow-outs in the ocean floor south of Svalbard, as the seabed becomes warmer and gas-hydrate reservoirs thaw.

But she can’t promise that researchers will catch the actual blow-out.

“The biggest blow-outs in the Barents Sea occurred when the ice melted, 12,000 to 15,000 years ago,” she said.

Andreassen says there is probably even more methane gas locked in the seabed around Greenland and in the Arctic Ocean than is found in the Barents Sea.

That could lead to some extremely large craters.

Pingos preceded blow-outs

Researchers have now examined satellite images of northern Siberian from a few years back and looked at the area where the explosions occurred. They found that the year before the huge crater appeared, there were large pingos in the same place.

Pingos are found in the arctic and are usually raised hills, like a giant pimple, with a core of ice.

In this case, however, the pingos must have been filled with gas in the form of ice, bound up with water in gas hydrates and permafrost.

Russian scientists have now mapped 7,000 gas-filled pingos that are poking through the thawing permafrost, visible in satellite images that illustrate how the pingos form and grow, published in The Siberian Times.

A dire warning from Siberia

Gas pipelines supplying Europe 'in real danger from exploding tundra' - top scientist

By The Siberian Times reporter

Siberian Times,

10 July 2017

Pipes are built over bulging and unstable Arctic pingos prone to violent eruptions caused by 'thawing methane gas', as seen twice on the Yamal peninsula this year.

Yerkutinskaya funnel. Picture: Aleksandr Sokolov 

New analysis by satellite and helicopter shows  gas pipelines run right over swelling tundra which is deeply unstable due to the release of underground methane that had been frozen in permafrost - now thawing - for thousands of years, revealed Russia's leading expert on the new phenomenon, Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky.

In one recent explosion, permafrost soil was thrown around 1 kilometre from the epicentre of the blast, highlighting the huge force, scientists discovered.

Flames shot into the sky, and a 50 metre-deep crater was formed from the eruption. 

The process is seen as caused by the warming Arctic climate and has vast implications for the energy industry in polar regions.

Seyakhinskaya funnel. Picture: Yamal Region  

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Gas from Yamal is crucial to both Russia and the European energy system, with exports in particular to Poland and Germany. 

Some 7,000 pingos - scientific name hydrolaccoliths - have been identified in Yamal, and one estimate is that some 700 of these mounds could be prone to eruptions.

Most are harmless but the difficulty for experts is identifying which are dangerous.

'In a number of areas pingos - we see  both from satellite data with own eyes during helicopter inspections - they literally prop up gas pipes,' said the professor. 

'I would even use another term - in some places they jack up gas pipes. 

'Do you understand? They seem to begin to slightly bend these pipes.'

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Yerkutinskaya and Seyakhinskaya funnels. Pictures: Aleksandr Sokolov, Yamal region  

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Experts say villages and towns are also under threat, but the risk of explosions under gas supply pipelines is clearly acute. 

Alexander Mazharov, deputy head of the governor of Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region, said: 'It is cleat that it was not a meteorite, but gas emission.'

The explosion was in an Arctic river, and it was immediately submerged with water.  

'We did a good job as we took samples of water, soil and air. Now it is time for laboratories to give us results of analyses,' he said. 

Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky. Picture: Vesti Yamal 

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Another crater - or funnel - that was found same week is called Yerkutinskaya. This is up to 10 metres in diameter and visible depth is 30 metres. 

'Based on satellite data, we have marked 7,000 bulges (pingos) - or even more,' said Bogoyavlensky, deputy director of the Oil and Gas Research Institute, Moscow.

'It doesn't mean that every pingo carries danger but it is still clear that we can draw certain conclusions. 

'Locals calls these bulges 'bugunyakhs'. In the West they are called pingos.'

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Scientists now believe that Yamal's landscape - pockmarked by round-shaped lakes - was substantially caused by this process over hundreds of years. 

This means it was not solely the recent 'global warming' that was responsible but more subtle rhythms of melting every decade with the Arctic Ocean ice cover melting by some 14%.

But it is only in the past three years that the formation of the new craters has been witnessed. 

In the case of the most recent explosion - now named Seyakhinskaya - it was witnessed by herders, and reindeer and dogs were seen fleeing in terror - see our previous report here.

Ice inside hydrolaccoliths thaws under the influence of high air temperature, say scientists.  Water takes less volume, while the vacant space is filled with a gas mixture, substantially methane. 

When the gas pressure inside the dome begins to exceed the pressure of the soil layer on the surface, gas gets out. 

Usually this happens as an emission, but in some cases, there is a fierce explosion. 

Trembling tundra of the Yamal Peninsula. Video credit Aleksandr Sokolov

Dr Bogoyavlensky believes the explosions are similar to the under-ocean eruptions of methane that caused the so-called Bermuda Triangle. 

The Yamal peninsula is now one of the world's key sites for production of natural gas for residential and industrial supplies, notably to Western Europe, for example by Gazprom.

Currently, there are three seismic stations on the Yamal peninsula, in Sabetta, Bovanenkovo and Kharasavey. 

Scientists believe at least six  permanent stations are required, with three more located in Urengoy, Bely island and Salekhard. 

The issue of Yamal tundra explosions is to addressed at the next meeting of the Russian government's state commission on exploration of the Arctic. 

Map of the newest Yamal funnels, and pictures of the funnel known as F1, registered in 2014. Pictures: The Siberian Times, Vasily Bogoyavlensky 

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Two new crateres formed on Yamal Peninsula

From the comments -

“The way craters are blasting this year... I don't know but... its too fast too strong... the dragon is definitely not at sleep anymore... how fast will he awaken? Maybe this year... next year... next decade. We humans are crazy... awakening the dragon.”

Pedro Maia, Hobarth

'Big bang' and 'pillar of fire' as latest of two new craters forms this week in the Arctic

SiberianTimes,

02 July 2017

Local reindeer herder witnessed the tundra explosion that led to birth of new hole in river.

New funnel in Yerkuta is reported to be 8 meters in diameters and about 20 meters deep. Picture: Alexandr Sokolov

Scientists have located two fresh craters formed on Yamal peninsula this year, with the latest exploding on 28 June with the eruption picked up by new seismic sensors specifically designed to monitor such events, The Siberian Times can disclose. 

First pictures of the large craters - or funnels as experts call them - are shown here, and add to four other big holes found in recent years and examined by experts, plus dozens of tiny ones spotted by satellite.

The formation of both craters involved an explosion followed by fire, evidently signs of the eruption of methane gas pockets under the Yamal surface. 

People in Seyakha village heard a 'loud explosion-like bang' then saw a fire and clouds of black smoke, according to reports.

Deputy director of the Oil and Gas Research Institute, Moscow, Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky said: 'We heard the news (about the new crater) from a friend  who saw a flame of fire and then a rising pillar of smoke.'

The head of Seyakha village, Igor Okotetto, confirmed he gad been told about the explosion. 

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Map shows previously known funnels, according to professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky: F1 - famous Yamal funnel some 30 kilometres from Bovanenkovo, F2 - recently detected crater 10 kilometres to the south from Bovanenkovo, F3 - crater located 90 kilometres from Antipayuta village; F4 - crater located near Nosok village, north of Krasnoyarsk region, near Taimyr Peninsula. Other pictures show new funnel that formed on 28 June 2017. Pictures: The Siberian Times, Yamal Region

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Reindeer herder Mikhail Okotetto gave details of the explosion to Vesti-Yamal television of the explosion by phone, evidently citing another herder close to the event. 

On 28 June 'there was short but mighty fire' around 10.25 am, he said.

It was registered by seismic sensors as being timed around 35 minutes later.

'It happened some 35 to 40 kilometres north-west of Seyakha,' he said on local TV. 'Reindeer herder Yakov Vengo has a camp there. 

'There was a hill not far from the camp, and it exploded. 

'There were fire, smoke and huge chunks of soil 'flying out' of the epicentre. 

'The hill has vanished.'

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New funnel in Seyakha. Pictures: Yamal Region 

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The account of an exploding hill is consistent with the scientific theory that sees the craters as mainly - but not only - formed by exploding pingo mounds. 

Helicopter reconnaissance of the site shows a crater appearing in a river, so it assumed the 'hill' was beside or abutting the river. 

The crater is some 30-35 kilometres is around 100 km of Russia's new state-of-the-art Arctic port of Sabetta.

It is in an area of crater-shaped lakes. 

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Seyakha funnel. Pictures: Yamal Region

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The second new funnel is some eight metres in diameter and 20 metres deep and first images show a spectacular classic crater-shape.

Renideer herders are reported to have seen 'an explosion and flames of fire' when snow still lay on the ground this year, but the exact timing of the eruption has not been established. 

This new funnel has been examined by a group of scientists led by Dr Alexandr Sokolov, who found the funnel on 24 June during an annual expedition for long-term monitoring of terrestrial ecosystems of Yamal.

A video of the crater was released to The Siberian Times by Dr Sokolov, deputy head of the Arctic Research station of the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  

VIDEO below shows two new craters, with the latest of them (second part of the video) forming on 28 June 2017. Pictures and video: Alexandr Sokolov, Yamal Region

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A mound of land along edges of the funnel confirms the fact of the explosion, Alexandr Sokolov said.

'This plot of land was absolutely flat just two years ago. A year ago in 2016 it bulged and we could see that soil has cracked there.'

It is believed the eruption was in the early part of this year. 

'The Nenets native people told us they saw fire in winter 2017, but it might mean January to March or April. 

In other words, it exploded when snow was still lying.'

This crater is around 30 km east of the Yerkut scientific station, and some 230 km north of Salekhard. 

The Scientific Centre for Arctic Research said its sensors picked up the latest explosion.

'On 28 June at 11.00.13 am local time, the seismic network on Yamal recorded a seismic event, probably associated with the release of gas,' said a statement from the institute.

'The oscillations are registered by two seismic stations located in Sabetta settlement and in the area of the Bovanenkovskoye gas field.'

The sensors have been established amid fears that the erupting funnels can damage key industrial infrastructure.

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F1, the Yamal peninsula crater that was registered in summer 2017. Pictures: Vasily Bogoyavlensky 

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The craters are believed to form when underground methane gas - trapped by permafrost for thousands of years - is released due to the warming climate in this Arctic region and erupts inside pingo mounds. 

Scientists say several thousand pingos, many filled with gas,  could 'explode' forming giant craters in this region. 

Pingos are dome-shaped mounds over a core of ice.

At least ten are known to have exploded in Siberia in recent years forming large craters, of which four have been closely examined by scientists. 

The largest, 35 metres deep and 40 metres in diameter, is close to the Bovanenkovskoye deposit.

One sensor can  analyse seismic processes non-stop in 200 km distance around it. 

Sabetta port is being built as part of a $27 billion project by Yamal LNG  on the Ob River estuary to export 16.5 million tons of liquefied gas from the Yuzhno-Tambeyskoye field. 

The accounts of explosions creating the recent craters is consistent with testimony about a bang and 'glow in the sky' seen 100 km from a remote crater on the Taimyr peninsula in Krasnoyarsk region. This blowout was in 2013, it is believed.

Scientist Dr Vladimir Epifanov, the sole leading expert to so far visit the site, said: 'There is verbal information that residents of nearby villages - at a distance of 70-100 km - heard a sound like an explosion, and one of them watched a clear glow in the sky.'

The Yamal crater filling with water

Mysterious giant hole in Siberia gradually filling up with water, expanding (PHOTOS)

RT,

10 July, 2015

The mysterious hole-turned-lake in Siberia’s Yamal peninsula has expanded to 50 meters in depth, Russian scientists said. Researchers have been puzzled by its origins saying it was likely caused by gas explosions.

The giant sinkhole located not far from Gazprom’s Bovanenkovo gas field in Russia’s northern Yamal Peninsula has been expanding, scientists said as cited by Yamal region TV. The researchers also discovered additional smaller craters appearing around it, the media said. The whole area is within Russia’s key strategic oil and gas region – the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

The crater, discovered last year, has been gradually filling up with water and turning into a lake. Over the past winter and spring the water level in the crater has risen by 10 meters and it will continue to rise, scientists said, according to the government website of the Yamal-Nenetsky region."I am very surprised by the size, it’s very big!” Japanese reporter for Asahi Shimbun Terukhiko Nouse, who accompanied the science expedition, told local TV. “And the sound of the glacier melting…this sound amazes me.”

Image from правительство.янао.рф

By July, two-thirds of the crater had filled with thawed snow and rain water. Scientists have taken tests from the bottom of the crater by lowering special sensors. The results show that the object is unpredictable raising fears of a descent into the crater.“Generally speaking, [the descent] will be very extreme,” Vladimir Pushkaryov, the head of the Russian Center of Arctic Exploration, told local TV. “First of all there is still [soil] caving-in, as well as thawed clay is still sagging.”

Earlier this year, scientists said that 20 mini-craters recently appeared around the hole-turned-lake in Yamal. Other crater discoveries have been made by locals.

Many theories have been put forward to explain the origin of the eerie holes – from the wild UFO-related ones to speculation about them being caused by global warming. 

Image from правительство.янао.рф

The giant sinkhole’s emergence is likely linked to thermal gas emissions, like most of the round-shaped tundra lakes located on the peninsula, said the head of a group researching the region’s craters and deputy director of the Moscow-based Oil and Gas Research Institute, Vasily Bogoyavlensky.

unning beauty inside mysterious Siberian crater (PHOTOS)

The process of the craters’ formation is caused by the melting of permafrost due to global warming, he said. As the result underground gas emissions occur causing the soil to rise and forming hill-like objects, he explained adding that some of them can blow up.“These hills, reaching a diameter of up to two kilometers and a height of dozens of meters, look quite exotic in the tundra plains. Gradually these objects disintegrate at high temperatures and form craters. However, a year ago, based on the formation of the Yamal crater, we’ve learned that they can even explode,” he said. 

Image from правительство.янао.рф

The Russian scientist has previously warned that rising temperatures will trigger the melting of permafrost and the ejection of large underground deposits of gas hydrates, which have negative effect on climate.

“We must research this phenomenon urgently, to prevent possible disasters," Bogoyavlensky said in February.