Specialists from the Research Institute of Moscow, Tyumen and Yekaterinburg in 2015 will make two full-scale expeditions to the Yamal craters. The first expedition is scheduled for March-April, the second for July-August, Vladimir Pushkarev, director of the Russian center for the development of the Arctic, told ITAR-TASS on Tuesday.
The craters were discovered in the summer by helicopter pilots serving local companies. There was no exploration work near the objects, so a lot of speculation about their mystical origin appeared on social networks. The depth of the dips reaches 100 meters, the width is 50 meters.
“The main goal of the expeditions is to understand the formation of craters: how unique is this natural phenomenon and whether it can happen again,” he stressed. - Unfortunately, this year we could not study them thoroughly. It was only possible to establish that these funnels are of natural origin. But what could have caused these natural phenomena remains a mystery to us."
According to Pushkarev, the expeditions planned at different times of the year will make it possible to accurately answer these and a number of other questions. Scientists plan to explore the bottom of the sinkholes, soil, analyze photographs taken from space, and in the summer, scientists will take care of the surroundings.
“In the summer, the funnels will be filled with melt water, so the places around them will be examined. By this time, the ground will thaw and it will be possible to study the area next to the craters, - explained Pushkarev. - Several million rubles will be allocated for the organization of expeditions from various sources of funding. The exact amounts will become known in early 2015."
According to Pushkarev, scientists from Europe are also interested in the Yamal craters. “Perhaps next year they will also make a scientific expedition to Yamal. We are ready to cooperate with them,”he said.
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Version of origin - climate warming
According to the chairman of the presidium of the Tyumen scientific community of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician Vladimir Melnikov, the craters were formed as a result of climate warming. The first appeared presumably in the fall of 2012, the second - in 2013.
“Frozen rocks have begun to thaw in Yamal. In some places they became less dense, and through them a shale gas emerged, which is found throughout the shelf of the Subarctic. Presumably, this was the reason for the formation of craters,”Melnikov said.