Thousands of exploded craters discovered on the Kara seabed

The gas leaking from the craters “can disrupt … underwater gas pipelines ,” a group of Russian researchers warns.


Graphic modeling of the methane domes on the Arctic Ocean floor. Photo: The Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate (CAGE)

Elizaveta Vereykinajournalist
19 November 2024 - 

THE BARENTS OBSERVER


“For the first time, via comprehensive aerospace research on the Yamal Peninsula, we have discovered 4992 zones of gas blowouts (explosions) in the form of craters… at the bottom of 3551… lakes and 16 rivers. In addition, we have identified another 669 zones of explosive degassing in the coastal zones of the Kara Sea”, - a study by a group of Russian scientists from the Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences reports, - “Taking into account the Yugorsky Peninsula and Bely Island, we have detected 6022 explosive degassing zones… including 905 offshore….”. According to scientists, the Sabetta district on the Yamal Peninsula is among the most gas-explosive.

Photo: datawrapper

The underwater and land craters have been appearing in the Russian tundra, as well as in the Arctic waters, for many years. The gas that escapes from these crater regions is methane - under pressure it makes the ground rise and eventually explode, leaving 20-meter-wide holes, as the Barents Observer has previously reported.

The potent greenhouse gas methane is responsible for around 30% of the rise in global temperatures, according to the International Energy Agency.

A dome with gas waiting to burst and create a crater on land. Photo: Screenshot from Russian Vesti TV report

After being released from the ground, it accumulates above clouds, trapping the sun's heat in the Earth's lower atmosphere.

In the past, the Arctic's low temperatures has kept the ground frozen, trapping the methane underground. But as the climate warms today, this perma-frozensoil is melting, allowing more and more gas to accumulate and eventually escape. This new study using satellite data highlights the scale of the problem.

Crator on the Yamal peninsula Photo: Screenshot from Russian Vesti TV report

"The thawing frozen soil can be thought of like a fridge full of food, - Pavel Serov, postdoctoral researcher at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, tells The Barents Observer, - the volume of the fridge shrinks, but the amount of food [gas] remains the same, something has to be taken out of the fridge. Colleagues at the Oil and Gas Research Institute speculate that a similar process is happening with the release of methane gas and the formation of craters in this region".

Pavel Serov, UiT researcher Photo: personal archive

While climate change is one of the reasons for the craters, the origin of some of them could be of a different kind. According to Pavel Serov, the craters in the Kara Sea could also be the result of normal marine life activity or the presence of icebergs.

Pavel also points out that methane emissions from the Yamal Peninsula and Western Siberia could potentially contribute to the greenhouse effect, but the Zeppelin Station, which monitors global atmospheric gases, hasn't detected anything catastrophic yet.

Another reason why the formation of craters is a potential danger is the damage that gas explosions could cause to oil and gas infrastructure. While there is only one underwater gas pipeline in the Russian Arctic, in the southernmost part of the Kara Sea, Russia has many gas and oil pipelines on land.

“Widespread gas blowouts in the north of Western Siberia with the formation of craters on land and offshore can lead to emergencies and even disasters at oil and gas industrial facilities and to fires in the tundra,” the study concludes.