Siberia's 'Gateway to Hell' crater fuels new fears | Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/siberias-gateway-hell-crater-fuels-new-fears
> Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says the #Batagaika crater in #Siberia expands 35 million cubic feet yearly due to thawing. #permafrost
Gateway to the #underworld: The enormous #permafrost '#megaslump' in #Siberia that keeps getting bigger
The growing "gateway to the underworld," officially known as the #BatagayMegaslump, is the largest megaslump in the world and exposes permafrost layers that are 650,000 years old.
By Sascha Pare
published September 13, 2024
"The 'gateway to the underworld' is a colossal, expanding crater in Siberia's permafrost. It is officially called the #Batagay (also spelled #Batagaika) crater or megaslump and formed when a portion of hillside in the #YanaUplands collapsed in the 1970s.
"However, the crater wasn't discovered until 1991, when satellite images revealed a rounded cliff face towering over a huge depression in the frigid landscape.
"The Batagay crater is the largest megaslump in the world, measuring 3,250 feet (990 meters) wide as of 2023. The cliff face at the top of the formation, or headwall, stands 180 feet (55 m) high.
"When it opened, the gateway exposed layers of permafrost that had been frozen for up to 650,000 years — the oldest permafrost in Siberia and the second-oldest in the world, after relict ground ice in #Canada's #YukonTerritory that is about 740,000 years old. Recently, researchers found that the gateway is expanding annually by about 35 million cubic feet (1 million cubic meters), with the depression sinking further into the ground and exposing new layers of ancient permafrost.
"The headwall of the gateway is also retreating at a rate of 40 feet (12 m) per year due to permafrost thaw, discharging massive amounts of ice and sediment into the crater, according to a 2024 study. Some of this melt material may remain in the crater, but #sediment and ice also washes into the #BatagayRiver valley at the far end of the gateway, researchers noted in the study.
"The permafrost in this region is 80% ice, which is likely why the hillside slumped in the first place, Thomas Opel, a paleoclimatologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany who has studied the gateway to the underworld, previously told Live Science.
"The gateway sits in a landscape of larch and birch #woodlands that became the target of #deforestation from the 1940s onward. Deforestation caused the #topsoil to rapidly erode and expose the underlying permafrost, which — due to its icy composition — melted more quickly than if it had been richer in sediments. Significant melting during the following decades caused the hillside to disintegrate and collapse, Opel said."
#ClimateChange #Underworld #Methane #Melting #GlobalWarming #ClimateCatastrophe
The #Batagay or #Batagaika crater in Siberia often referred to as the "Doorway to the Underworld" or the
"Gateway to Hell" is a
#permafrost #megaslump in Yakutia, Russia.
Dimensions vary by source, but the site covers around 192 acres (78 hectares)
and stretches two thirds of a mile (one kilometer) in length.
Logged of trees in the 1960s, its walls reach a depth of around 180 feet (55 meters)
and expose 650,000 years of geologic history.
Since first spotted in the 1960s by surveillance satellites, the crater has grownfrom an insignificant gully to a massive depression at an accelerating rate.
According to Sarah Cadieux, Sr. Lecturer and Associate Director of Environmental Science of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
the crater area increased by almost three times from 1991 to 2018.
The Batagaika crater isn’t a crater at all,
it’s a #retrogressive #thaw #slump, a type of terrain called #thermokarst that occurs in areas underlain by permafrost.
No longer cooled by forest cover, the slump has become a self-sustaining #feedback #loop,
a portion of the ecosystem which has tipped into a new state.
This is not an isolated case, but rather a rapidly growing problem in the Arctic as
💥it warms three to four times the rate of the rest of the planet since 1979.
Called Arctic or polar #amplification, this phenomenon is a well established fact measured by instruments,
confirmed in climate computer models,
and reinforced by paleoclimate records.
Powerful anecdotal evidence occurred in the scorching heatwave of 2020 that saw the Russian town of Verkhoyansk
which lies north of the Arctic Circle hit a stunning 38° C (100.4° F) on June 20.
2020 also saw overall temperatures in the Siberian basin rise to nearly 11° F above normal,
shocking scientists and releasing #ancient #methane
not from ancient organic material,
but from #limestone.
Elevated methane in wetlands was expected, but not from #outgassing #rock.
A year later in 2021 Europe’s climate change service Copernicus Sentinel satellites recorded 118° F (48° C) in the Sakha Republic of Arctic Siberia,
and records continue to fall with temperatures over 100° F in 2023 as reported by CNN.
Kennt Ihr den "#Batagaika Megaslump"?
Vom Namen her vielleicht nicht, aber von Fotos eher. Es ist ein riesiger durch tauenden #Permafrostboden enstandener Krater in #Sibirien. Ursache: #Abholzung des Waldes seit den 1960er-Jahren.
Tauender Permafrostboden ist gefährlich. Für Neulinge sei zum Einstieg das Buch
"Der Klimawandel für Einsteiger" empfohlen.
ISBN: 978-3738637823
https://buchshop.bod.de/der-klimawandel-fuer-einsteiger-tino-eberl-9783757895099
Er zijn nieuwe dronebeelden vrijgegeven van de Batagaika-krater in het oosten van Rusland. Het gaat om een gigantische permafrostkrater, de grootste ter wereld. Het begon met ontbossing, daarna deed de opwarming van de aarde en het ontdooien van de permafrost (de permanent bevroren ondergrond) de rest. Zo ontstond er een groot "gat in het landschap", eentje dat almaar groter wordt. "De krater groeit elk jaar verschillende meters aan beide kanten."
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