The mysterious holes began appearing about a decade ago and since then they have baffled scientists as to their cause. Now researchers from the UK and Spain believe they may know what’s going on.
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00:00This is a massive crater in the Siberian permafrost in Russia.
00:08It's just one of several similar holes that mysteriously began appearing about a decade
00:12ago and since then they have baffled scientists as to their cause.
00:17Now researchers from the UK and Spain believe they may now know what's going on.
00:21These craters through ice and earth are quite large, some measuring around 100 feet wide
00:25and over 160 feet deep.
00:28The holes rest debris that was seemingly ejected from them.
00:32What's more, experts say that when they opened up, they released massive amounts of methane
00:36gas.
00:37This all points to what they call a very niche geological process that starts with warm temperatures
00:41melting permafrost and causing the gas within to expand.
00:45And much like a bike tire exploding after being overinflated, once water from the surface
00:49trickles deeper and deeper into the earth due to climate change, it reaches a salty
00:53layer called cryopeg, which doesn't freeze due to its salinity, which then mixes with
00:57that water and pumps it into the layer below.
01:00That layer just so happens to be composed of crystallized hydrogen bonded water and
01:04methane, which then ruptures and releases the gas, forcing it upwards.
01:09Experts say this usually happens over thousands of years, but global warming is speeding up
01:13the process, causing it to occur in only decades.