Batagaika Crater: Affected Due To Climate Change
Stunning drone footage has revealed details of the Batagaika crater which is getting affected due to climate change.
- Batagaika Crater is located in Russia’s Far East that forms the world’s biggest permafrost crater.
- Scientists believe that the crater is the result of a melting permafrost land, which was frozen during the Quaternary Ice Age 2.58 million years ago,
- It began to form after the surrounding forest was cleared in the 1960s and the permafrost underground began to melt, causing the land to sink.
- It is also called as “gateway to the underworld,” by some locals in Russia’s Sakha Republic It has a scientific name: a mega-slump.
- This is produced by higher air temperatures, warming climate and anthropogenic impact.
- It holds clues to prehistoric life on Earth. Researchers believe the exposed ice and soil along the crater’s edges could hold up to 200,000 years of geological and biological history.
- The soil beneath the slump, which is about 100 metres deep (328 feet) in some areas, contains an “enormous quantity” of organic carbon that will release into the atmosphere as the permafrost thaws, further fuelling the planet’s warming.
