[Rockhounds] Earth's 'Gateway to Hell' is growing by 35 million cubic feet each year

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Whether you're a John Carpenter fan or a biology enthusiast, you shouldn't
need much convincing to know that the melting of subterranean permafrost at
the poles is not a good thing. Last year, scientists gave us one more thing
to lose sleep over, reviving a 48,500-year-old 'zombie virus'
<https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/15/2/564> unearthed from Arctic permafrost
– and it was not the first time
<https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1320670111>. It's one more
sting in the tail of climate change – the threat of ancient diseases that
have lain frozen and dormant for millennia.

Now, new research has detailed the rate at which Siberia's massive
Batagaika crater is devouring the surface of the Earth, expanding at a rate
of 35 million cubic feet each year. Currently, it measures around 1 km (0.6
mi) long and 800 m (0.5 mi) across at its widest point. And it's speeding
up.

Batagaika crater, located in the Chersky Range in northeastern Siberia, is
not actually a crater but a thermokarst depression – a kind of sinkhole or
'mega-slump' driven by the collapse and fracturing of land due to
permafrost loss. It was only discovered in 1991, after this underground
opening split further and took with it a large section of hillside. In the
video below, you can see its growth from discovery to 2007.

https://newatlas.com/environment/siberia-doorway-to-hell-batagaika-crater/