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- Increasing the size of the Batagaika crater in Yakutia, Russia
Increasing the size of the Batagaika crater in Yakutia, Russia
Russian Federation
last update:
7 months agoProblems
The Batagai crater is located in the East Siberian taiga, 660 kilometers from Yakutsk and 10 kilometers from the village of Bagatai. It was formed in the 1970s as a ravine, and now it is a depression 1 kilometer long and about 100 meters deep. The crater was named after the nearby Batagayka River. Geologists call this formation a thermokarst depression - a collapse resulting from the melting of permafrost.
Causes for the increase in the size of the Batagaika crater
The Batagai crater is a constantly growing depression. As the ice melts, it begins to expand rapidly. This process is driven by an increase in temperature, which leads to the thawing of permafrost. The soil, frozen for centuries, sags, and as a result, significant changes occur in the landscape - the so-called thermokarsts are formed. Batagayka is a particularly large thermokarst, but there are plenty of smaller "potholes" in the tundra. Deforestation may play a role in exacerbating crater growth. These actions can disrupt the natural landscape and accelerate the melting and erosion of permafrost. While the growing crater may attract tourists, continued soil collapse is a sign of danger. As temperatures rise, we will see more and more of these mega sinkholes until all of the permafrost disappears.
Consequences for the surrounding areas
According to Roshydromet, Russia is warming at least 2.5 times faster than the rest of the world. Melting permafrost is already threatening cities in the north and northeast of the country. This process destroys houses and roads and disrupts pipelines. Extensive wildfires, which have become more intense in recent years, exacerbate the problem.
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Timelines
2023
July 21
Scientists from the Melnikov Institute of Permafrost have reported the rapid melting of the world's largest permafrost crater Batagayka, located in Yakutia. And in this regard, the failure began to expand rapidly. The crater widened, lengthened and deepened. As the planet warms up, it gets bigger and bigger.
2022
Roshydromet published a report saying that Russia is warming up at least 2.5 times faster than the rest of the world. Because of this, permafrost is starting to melt and sea ice is shrinking in the Arctic. As a result, in particular, greenhouse gases stored in thawed soils are released.
2017
May
The crater "Batagayka" in the Verkhoyansk region is steadily expanding. This is evidenced by images from space taken from satellites from 1999 to 2016. This process testifies to the melting of permafrost, according to YakutiaMedia news agency. A series of four images taken by instruments aboard the Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 satellites show how the crater has grown over the years. The crater has expanded, elongated and deepened, by now taking the form of a tadpole about 1 km in length. The depth of the failure reaches hundreds of meters, in the widest part - 800 m.+
1999
August
The earth began to open up intensively in the late 1980s. From orbit, the failure looked like a small scratch on the body of the green tundra - this is how it was first seen by the Landsat 7 satellite.
1980
A failure is growing, located in the Verkhoyansk region of Yakutia. The crater exposed plant fossils, cave lions, woolly rhinos, mammoths and other Pleistocene fossils. With the help of the abyss that arose in the middle of the taiga, scientists get an idea of the climate of the prehistoric era.
1960
The first signs of failure appeared, located in the Verkhoyansk region of Yakutia.