This massive hole was actually uncovered by a complete accident by a Vesti Yamal TV crew. They were returning from another assignment when all of a sudden, they spotted this crater altogether and to their surprise, it was unlike anything they’d ever seen before.
The crater in itself appears to be over 200 feet deep and as far as we can tell it is perfectly cylindrical.
It is not the only one to have ever been discovered, as a lot of them have been found over the years as a result of the methane gas that effectively built up in the thawing permafrost, forcing a massive explosion to occur which caused the crater to emerge in the first place.
No other crater has ever been discovered of this size though according to Every Chuvilin, the head researcher from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology.
For the most part, craters are referred to as hydrolaccoliths or bulgunnyakhs and because of its resemblance to other past craters, it has been nicknamed “seventeen” by the scientists. According to professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky from the Oil and Gas Research Institute in Moscow, this discovery in itself might actually help us uncover a lot of mysteries regarding the formation of craters altogether, it might even help us actually see them coming as for the most part the eruption needed to create one such crater is quite devastating so being able to foresee them would definitely help out the community a lot.
