Last year on July 3rd, large craters were accidentally found in northern Russia by some reindeer herders. The exact locations are in Yamal Peninsula, Tazovsky district and Taymyr Peninsula.
Upon the findings, worldwide speculations have arisen on what might have been the cause of this strange phenomenon. People have speculated about meteorites big enough to make such craters. More than few people also talked about the involvement of extraterrestrial beings in making them.
The curiosity has grown even more very recently when another 4 big craters were spotted by a satellite around the area, making the total number of the giant craters seven, as reported by the English-written Russian journal The Siberian Times. "We know now of seven craters in the Arctic area," Vasily Bogoyavlensky, a researcher at the Moscow-based Oil and Gas Research Institute, told The Siberian Times. "Five are directly on the Yamal Peninsula, one in Yamal autonomous district, and one is on the north of the Krasnoyarsk region, near the Taimyr Peninsula."
Viewed from the satellite, one of the newfound giant craters called B2, 6.2 miles south of Bivanenkovo, near a gas field, is surrounded with 20 smaller craters and together with another newfound crater, these 2 bigger and 20 smaller craters have become lakes.
Apart from public speculations on these mysterious craters, scientists think this phenomenon has something to do with global warming. The warmer climate has melted the year-round frozen layer of the soil permafrost and as the result the trapped high-pressure gas, largely methane, is released from beneath the surface, creating explosions that make the craters.
"In my opinion, it definitely relates to warming and permafrost," remarked Vladimir Romanovsky, a permafrost specialist geophysicist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Antipayuta town's residents have been reported to have witnessed a bright flash in the vicinity, which is raising concern about the safety issue as the flash may mean the explosion created fire
More craters may be found in the near future and for the sake of the safety of the area, he urged the institute to conduct more research on the very unusual phenomenon
