The Batagaika crater is a

thermokarst Thermokarst is a type of terrain characterised by very irregular surfaces of marshy hollows and small hummocks formed as ice-rich permafrost thaws. The land surface type occurs in Arctic areas, and on a smaller scale in mountainous areas such as ...

depression in the

Chersky Range The Chersky Range (, ) is a chain of mountains in northeastern Siberia between the Yana River and the Indigirka River. Administratively the area of the range belongs to the Sakha Republic, although a small section in the east is within Magadan O ...

area. The biggest

permafrost Permafrost is ground that continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years, located on land or under the ocean. Most common in the Northern Hemisphere, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface ...

crater in the world, it administratively belongs to the

Sakha Republic Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia),, is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of roughly 1 million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far Eas ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, and is in its

Verkhoyansky District Verkhoyansky District (russian: Верхоя́нский улу́с; sah, Үөһээ Дьааҥы улууһа, ''Üöhee Djaangy uluuha'', ) is an administrativeConstitution of the Sakha Republic and municipalLaw #172-Z #351-III district (raion, ...

Description

The depression is in the form of a one-kilometre-long gash up to 100 metres (328 feet) deep, and growing, in the

East Siberian taiga The East Siberian taiga ecoregion, in the Taiga and boreal forests biome, is a very large biogeographic region in eastern Russia. Setting This vast ecoregion is located in the heart of Siberia, stretching over 20° of latitude and 50° of longitu ...

, located southeast of

Batagay Batagay (russian: Батага́й; sah, Баатаҕай, ''Baatağay'') is an urban locality (an urban-type settlement) and the administrative center of Verkhoyansky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located on the Yana River. As of the ...

and northeast of the settlement Ese-Khayya, about north-northeast of the capital

Yakutsk Yakutsk (russian: Якутск, p=jɪˈkutsk; sah, Дьокуускай, translit=Djokuuskay, ) is the capital city of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of ...

. The structure is named after the near-flowing Batagayka, a right tributary of the river

Yana Yana may refer to: Locations *Yana, Burma, a village in Hkamti Township in Hkamti District in the Sagaing Region of northwestern Burma *Yana, India, a village in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, India * Yana, Nigeria, an administrative ca ...

. The land began to sink due to the thawing permafrost in the 1960s after the surrounding forest was cleared. Flooding also contributed to the enlargement of the crater.

Paleontologists Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

have found Ice Age fossils buried in the mud around the rim of the crater. The rim is extremely unstable as there are regular landslides into the crater and the permafrost is constantly thawing. The crater is currently growing in size.Batagaika Crater Expands
NASA Earth Observatory, April 27, 2017 According to Mary Edwards of the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

, the process of erosion that increases the crater's size occurs in the following way:

Below the cliff face, steep hills and gullies drop to Batagaika's floor. As more of the material at the bottom of the slope melts and comes loose, a larger face is exposed to the air, which in turn increases the speed of permafrost thawing. The crater will likely eat through the entire hillslope before it slows down. Every year as soon as temperatures go above freezing, it's going to start happening again. Once you've exposed something like this, it's very hard to stop it.

According to research published in 2016, the crater wall has been growing by a yearly average of 10 meters per year over a ten-year observational period.

Fossils

The rapid expansion of the crater is uncovering a host of

fossilized A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

materials, including ancient forests and pollen and animal carcasses such as that of musk ox, mammoth and horse, along with other animals. It also allows for insight into 200,000 to 650,000 years of climate data.Murton, J., Opel, T., Toms, P., Blinov, A., Fuchs, M., Wood, J., Gärtner, A., Merchel, S., Rugel, G., Savvinov, G., Wetterich, S. (2021). A multimethod dating study of ancient permafrost, Batagay megaslump, east Siberia. Quaternary Research, 1-22. doi:10.1017/qua.2021.27.

References

External links

Batagaika Crater Expands
at

NASA Earth Observatory NASA Earth Observatory is an online publishing outlet for NASA which was created in 1999. It is the principal source of satellite imagery and other scientific information pertaining to the climate and the Environment (biophysical), environment whi ...

, 27 April 2017.
Siberia's growing hole in the ground
BBC Reel (video, 4:48 min.), 27 July 2020. Depressions of Russia Periglacial landforms Patterned grounds Permafrost Chersky Range {{SakhaRepublic-geo-stub