Several decades ago, in the deep, impassable taiga, right on the border dividing the Irkutsk region and Yakutia, geologists accidentally discovered a strange object - a crater of unknown origin, consisting of gray limestone.
As it turned out, the Yakuts have known about it for a long time and call it the Nest of the Fiery Eagle, and the river flowing at its foot - the Fiery River. Perhaps these names did not appear by chance, they speak of the processes that once took place here. So far, scientists do not have an unambiguous answer how this mysterious crater appeared in the taiga.
The Patomsky crater was discovered by an expedition led by Vadim Kolpakov in 1949, therefore it is sometimes called the Kolpakov cone. It is a cone with a base diameter of about 180 m and a height of 40 m. At the top of the crater there is a funnel, similar to the mouth of a volcano. In the center of the funnel, there is a small hill 12 m high.
According to some reports, the volume of the rock forming the crater is about 250 thousand m3, and the weight is about 1 million tons. It is surprising that with such a volcanic form, there are no traces of deep rocks characteristic of an eruption.
Today there are two main versions of the origin of the crater, which has no analogues in the world: it is an extinct volcano or the place of a meteorite fall. But there are several dozen different assumptions like “secret mines where GULAG prisoners worked” or “exploding uranium ores in the depths”.
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I ASKED AT THE TREE …
The very first version of the formation of the Patomsky crater suggests that this is an echo of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. To confirm or deny it, an expedition headed by geochemist E. Vorobyov went to these regions in 2005.
However, very close to the crater, Vorobiev died of a heart attack, and the expedition had to be interrupted. The second expedition, which took place in 2006, was more fortunate. The participants managed to get to the crater and take rock samples. Based on the study of the stones, geologists concluded that the origin of the object is geological.
Despite the available facts, astronomers continued to insist on the meteorite version. Dendrochronologists joined the study to resolve the dispute. A group of SIFIBR scientists headed by V. I. Voronin began to determine the age of the Patomsky crater.
Here is what Voronin said: “Having considered the age of the cut trees, I came to the conclusion that there can be no question of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite in this place. The first tree appeared on its slopes sometime in 1770. The crater already existed by that time!"
According to the number of rings on the sawn larch trees growing on the slopes of the crater, their age is approximately 250 years.
In addition to the age of the trees, the scientist was interested in whether there are traces of radioactive elements in them. Imagine his surprise when the answer came from the Novosibirsk Institute of Nuclear Physics, where the wood samples were sent!
It turns out that the larch trees contained both radioactive uranium and strontium. In addition, their wood contained increased amounts of potassium and calcium.
One more curious discovery awaited scientists. The annual rings of larch trees stopped growing at some point, and this pause lasted for about 40 years. Similar pictures were observed in Chernobyl and Semipalatinsk. It turns out that there was also a burst of radiation here.
Based on these studies, Voronin suggested that the trees received radioactive metals through the needles or absorbed from the soil through the roots. Since the radioactive background in this area is normal, it means that the first assumption disappears by itself. It turns out that the larch took radioactive metals from the ground.
But this could only happen when the temperature of the soil and water was high: “When the temperature of the earth rose, the roots of the trees could absorb more radioactive materials. In 1842, something warmed up the soil, and more of these elements got into the plants. Then the underground stove cooled down, and the permafrost rose to the roots again”.
In addition, Voronin, having carefully examined the panoramic photos of the crater, noticed that, firstly, within a radius of 1 km around the object, the forest had been dumped, and secondly, the trees growing on the slope were clearly affected by some kind of force (turned out with the root, the bark is torn off). That is, there was some kind of catastrophe: a deep explosion or a volcanic eruption.
And it happened in 1841-1842. It was then that the level of the radioactive isotope in the wood increased 5 times here, and after 40 years it slept. True, where the radiation came from at that time remains a mystery. Maybe there was an alien ship in the crater and its reactor continued to work underground for some time until it exploded?
UNDER THE CRATER IS SOMETHING
While astronomers were arguing with geologists, the specialists of the Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences put forward another, at first glance, fantastic version. They suggested that the cause of the crater was a cylindrical body that fell from the sky. The head of the laboratory of wave dynamics of this institute I. Simonov believes that the body in the form of a cylinder hit the ground with tremendous force and went deep.
As a result, it swept a large amount of rock to the surface. The fact that the pieces of rock were not scattered around, but formed in the form of a crater, allows scientists to conclude that there was no explosion, the rock outcropping was rather slow.
Researchers are confident that the object is in the shape of a cylinder because, if it were in any other shape, it would not have been able to cut so deeply into the ground. It was stopped by a gas-filled underground cavity. It was the gas under pressure that pushed the rock to the surface.
Professor of Irkutsk Technical University A. Dmitriev clarifies that this mysterious object, located in a crater at a depth of 100 to 150 m, has an uncharacteristically high content of iron and ferromagnets for these places. That is why a strong magnetic field is observed here. "We are dealing with a strange meteorite, which did not explode from hitting the ground, but, like a drill, went deep inside."
This is partly confirmed by Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences A. Pospeev: “Under the crater, a three-dimensional object with increased electrical conductivity was revealed. It resembles an ellipsoid or a cylinder in shape, the top of which is at a depth of about 100 m. Down it goes 600-700 m. The object does not consist of metal, but is formed by salt water that fills the cavity under the crater."
But Professor V. Antipin, who headed one of the expeditions, believes that there was an explosion, and besides it there was some kind of impact twice, since the rock came to the surface three times.
Most scientists do not think that it was a UFO, in their opinion, it was a meteorite, although not quite familiar in composition and properties.
EVENTUALLY
Quite often the clues lie in the names of mysterious objects, which were named by the locals. Why do the Yakuts call the Patomsky crater the Fire Eagle's Nest? Perhaps in the 18th century, the population of these places witnessed a luminous object rapidly approaching the Earth from the sky.
Maybe it was a meteorite, or maybe a UFO, but one thing is clear: the alien guest was quite large, so they compared him with a large bird - an eagle, and “fiery” because, in their opinion, it was burning.
The place of its fall was called the Nest of the Fire Eagle, because the crater is very similar to the nest that these birds like to arrange on the rocks. By the way, the ancient Sumerians also called "eagles" the devices on which the gods flew. Is there some connection here?
So, if we analyze the meager information obtained by expeditions and the conclusions made by the researchers, we get the following picture. 250 years ago, some cylindrical space object at all its great speed entered the earth to a depth of about 600 m. The rock crushed and squeezed out by it formed a crater.
Later, in 1841-1842. for some reason, the space body began to emit a large amount of heat. This was enough for the soil above it to warm up so much that the annual rings of the trees underwent changes.
Then the cylinder rose to the surface along the channel made by him and stopped at a depth of about 150 m. Most likely, the object was raised in two stages. It was at this time that a hill was formed in a cone, and under the space body, the cavity formed by it was filled with groundwater.
It turns out that this mysterious, unknown and therefore frightening object is gradually approaching the surface of the earth. And who knows what surprises might happen when he finally gets out of the crater.
Galina BELYSHEVA