666 kilometers from Yakutsk. Here, in the midst of eternal nothing, the Yakutsk Gap has formed. Scientists cannot understand why the funnel grows every day and continues to go deeper into the ground.
The cleft appeared in the 1960s, after a section of taiga was cut down 8 km south-west of the village of Batagay. After that, the soil subsided, exposing the layer of permafrost. In subsequent years, marked by constantly rising temperatures, the ice-bound rocks thawed, and the Batagai crater continued to grow.
Spring floods (like the massive 2008 flood) accelerate erosion. The crater is increasing by about 15 meters per year. Now the cleft goes a hundred meters deep, reaching a kilometer in length and 800 meters in width.
Such faults are found in Canada and Greenland, but the Siberian crater is 2-3 times deeper than them - and therefore is especially attractive for permafrost scientists and paleontologists. On the slopes of the gorge, geological layers of different eras are easily visible. Their composition and structure can tell a lot about the past of our planet, its climatic periods and inhabitants.
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In 2009, a well-preserved 4,400-year-old foal skeleton and the remains of a bison calf were found here. Other finds include the bones of mammoths and deer.
Since 2011, researchers from the Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North have been conducting research here.
In May 2016, Permafrost Professor Julian Merton from the University of Sussex, UK, joined the local group of scientists.
Merton hoped that a trip to Siberia would help him to clarify the relationship between global warming and the growth of thermokarst formations. Having descended to the bottom of the crevice, experts took samples of soils and the remains of plants and living organisms frozen in them.
According to Merton's comments, the oldest geologic strata exposed was formed 200,000 years ago. Its composition testifies to the fact that thousands of years ago the climate in the vicinity of Verkhoyansk was the same as now - and even warmer. The proof of this is the fragments of ancient trees, perfectly preserved in the permafrost. The British scientist expects to return here and continue his research.
Batagayka is not the first and, it seems, not the last thermokarst crater in Russia. The cause of similar craters in Yamal is considered to be global warming. Professor Merton does not exclude the possibility that new basins may appear in the vicinity of Batagay in the future.
But by all accounts, the failure should stop growing long ago. This is not happening. The crater deepens by 30 meters per year and grows in length.
Now the Batagaysky dip goes down more than a hundred meters. It is a kilometer long and 800 meters wide.
Permafrost experts jokingly call the failure a "portal to hell", locals talk about it the same way, but without a shadow of a smile.