Scientists have discovered that a crater in Siberia is expanding faster than expected due to climate change, now posing problems for surrounding habitats.
Known as the “Gateway to Hell” and located in the frigid Yana Highlands, the Batagaika Sinkhole currently covers about 200 acres of land and can be seen in satellite images taken from space.
The crater was first detected in images taken in 1991 and has been increasing in width and depth since then as global warming causes permafrost (frozen soil sediments) to melt.
In a new study published in Geomorphology, glaciologist Alexander Kizyakov and his team used remote sensing data and field data from laboratory samples taken in 2019 and 2023 to create a 3D view of permafrost melting rates.
They revealed that the crater is an astonishing 300 feet deep, and that there is little room for it to grow deeper, as the permafrost melt has almost reached the bedrock at the bottom.
However, the crater is still expanding outward at an “accelerated rate”.
“The volume of the bowl-shaped retrogressive melt subsidence (RTS) is increasing by approximately 1 million cubic meters per year,” Kizyakov wrote in the study.
This will pose problems for the nearby Batagay River as it will increase river bank erosion and affect the surrounding habitat.
Kizyakov and his team noted that the rapidly expanding crater may also increase greenhouse gas emissions as frozen nutrients melt and are released into the atmosphere.
They estimate that 4,000 to 5,000 tons of organic carbon that was previously locked in permafrost is currently being released annually, with this figure likely to increase each year.
Nikita Tananaev, a researcher at the Melnikov Institute of Permafrost in Yakutsk, Russia, who was not involved in the study, told Atlas Obscura that he was not surprised by the crater’s expansion.
“As we observe the current climate over the Verkhoyansky Mountains, near the Batagay megasink, it is not surprising that this feature is growing so fast,” says Tananaev.
Temperatures in the area have been above average in recent years.
“The higher rate of retreat is expected to continue as we expect several more years of extremely high air temperature to occur in this region,” he said.