Scientists Get First Look Inside Mysterious Siberian Crater

It's a hole..

Looks like a collapsed thermal spring to me tbh.

a reply to: nighthawk1954

To be honest, I'm not sure why a big hole in the ground makes international news like this. Sure, I understand that nobody has an explanation for it. But, there are a heck of a lot of other things out there that nobody has explanations for. Is this really that significant or important?

Crystalline rock and sandstone holding massive methane deposits in melting tundra = bad news for us all.

A dome under such material could produce round hole and it might be less explosive than eruptive in nature.

See the lake nearby? Wet rock might allow very high pressure gas bubble to form (water can't be compressed) then ~pop~

The planet's ONLY hope is that the magnetic north pole will settle in Siberia or nearby and the actual pole will settle near enough to refreeze methane. At least some would make it through the biblical scale disasters. Whereas if methane fills the skies.. We're all F#cked.

a reply to: nighthawk1954

I am jumping on the band wagon with the idea something came up and out of that hole, personally there is no doubt about this in my mind, also if you notice the smoothed area with vertical lines does not go down to the water it breaks a few meters down going into a more cave like formation, which to me suggests there was a cavity or cave here already under a few meters of solid rock.

Under that water could well be a huge cave complex stretching miles, this is one rabbit hole that Alice needs to check out (with a live feed helmet cam of course).

originally posted by: Agit8dChop
im guessing a long long time ago something punctured that piece of crust. Maybe it was a meteor or who knows what.
Over millennia as the permafrost/ice/rock has built up over it, that perfect little hole continually froze, unfroze, fell through, refroze, unfroze etc... expanded, froze, fell through, expanded.. Its permafrost after all.

The sides are smooth, but they are wet. There's water dripping down. some sort of ice melting yeah?

I'm thinking each cycle of this thing a cork creates its self made of permafrost.
The older it gets the heavier it gets eventually (maybe 100's of years) the circular shape provided from the meteor or what ever contracts too much and pushes the circular permafrost cork through, like a deep pimple. the friction on the permafrost melts and slides the length of the hole. causing a smoothish look, a melted ice smoothish look!!

I doubt a mechanical object rose out of the ground, war of the worlds style.

I am on board with your meteorite explaination

there are many other symmetrical craters in the world but non that are in Tundra or Permafrost to compare with

With the permafrost I would expect that kind of impact crater.

Because the ground is frozen most of the material will bind and compress around the edges while leaving a fairly intact cylindrical tunnel down to ground zero

If you look at ballastic data for similar material impacts they will pretty much line up with what we're seeing.

Damn cool to see tho and obviously there are several other explanations that could fit and it's always a good idea to keep your mind open to any possibility.

What will come out of all these deep holes? that's the question we should start asking ourselves. locusts anyone?

Something / someone powerful enough has definitely caused this.

I agree with mobit. Looking at surrounding area are other round, roundish water filled depressions. Could subterranean methane deposits be popping-off from time to time, perhaps ignited by lightning? The ejected soil material, being quite sandy by the looks of it, would erode away sooner or later & leave just a water filled depression, much like what can be seen around there.

Still waiting for footage that shows the insides of this thing, the video provided by OP is not very detailed.. more like a cellphone dangling in a rope

a reply to: Spacespider

a reply to: p4rs3C

a reply to: Kandinsky

Great vid Kandinsky. Now, if you could only translate it for me,...

Thanks!

Des

a reply to: Destinyone

Don't thank me, thank p4rs3C for posting it earlier on - it got lost mid-thread so i starred a little light on it.

For me, it makes the hole look less mysterious than I first thought. Much of the vertical striations aren't signs of something travelling up, but meltwater/groundwater running down the small channels and gullies.

It's regrettable as the idea of something popping out of the ground was just so juicy and interesting.

originally posted by: Nochzwei
Something / someone powerful enough has definitely caused this.

Yes.

WATER.

In the same way it created the other, hundreds of sink-holes in immediate vicinity of this one.

a reply to: Kandinsky

I agree, this particular vid (thank you p4rs3C), changed my mind from *it could be*, to erosion from above scenario. Seeing the small pebbles travel down the existing grooves, made it all too clear for me.

Des

How about this for a reason?
The Soviet Union's Nuclear

Between 1949 and 1989, 456 atomic and thermonuclear devices were exploded at the Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS) under conditions of tight confidentiality. Explosions were conducted on the surface and in the atmosphere. Five of the surface tests were unsuccessful and resulted in the dispersion of plutonium into the environment, with the first test on 29 August 1949 unexpectedly contaminating villages to the northeast of the STS.

Would this have caused all of these holes up there?

Lake Chagan was created by a 140-kt underground nuclear explosion, equivalent to 140,000 tons of TNT, on 15 January 1965. The crater formed by the Chagan explosion had a diameter of 408 m and a depth of 100 m. Approximately20 percent of the radioactive fission particles released by the explosion escaped into the atmosphere, wrote Milo D. Nordyke in The Soviet Program for Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Explosions. Radioactivity from the test was detected as far away as Japan.

What an ecological disaster, maybe we haven't seen anything yet?

Researchers later discovered that large amounts of radioactive material associated with nuclear weapon testing had been dumped into the Barents and Kara seas. Novaya Zemlya - The Sad Reality describes how Novaya Zemlya was also used as a graveyard for various nuclear weapons, submarines, and reactors, which were sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Many vessels still had their radioactive materials aboard. These materials were not properly disposed of. As containers break down and submarines corrode, the materials inside have the potential to pollute marine life and disperse radioactivity into the ecosystem. Strong currents can then carry contaminants into fishing grounds and into the feeding areas of sea mammals and birds.

Ugh. I wouldn't be able to wait a day without getting a lengthy rope ladder and checking it out properly. I don't understand how they don't do that! So what if there's a little human loss. I'd be too curious to not climb down.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Well, we can always thank Kandy for bringing sensibility to any subject.

I agree!! a reply to: VoidHawk