The Batagaika crater is the world’s largest one kilometre-long permafrost crater in situated in Siberia’s permafrost.
Key points
- It is expanding at a baffling rate due to the thawing of the permafrost.
- This has been exacerbated by global warming.
- The sinkhole, known as the Batagaika crater, it’s what’s officially called a ‘megaslump’ or ‘thermokarst’.
- Covering approximately 0.3 square miles (0.8 square kilometers) — equivalent to the area of about 145 football fields — the deep scar cutting through the east Siberian woodlands was likely triggered by deforestation during the 1940s.
- This led to erosion, which then exacerbated seasonal melting of the permafrost and created a “megaslump,” or the massive crater in the ground.
- Because the permafrost in this region is comprised of 80% ice, the large amounts of melting forced sediment on the hillside to collapse, revealing what looks like a giant gash slashing through the landscape in Russia’s Sakha Republic.
