© Itar-Tass/ZumaA crater on the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia. Scientists aren't sure what caused these craters to form in the Siberian Arctic, where the permafrost is thawing.
A Siberian Times article suggested that 7,000 underground gas bubbles are set to "explode" on the peninsulas of Yamal and Gydan as a result of melting permafrost. The article differentiates these small gas bubbles from enormous craters in the tundra landscape, but asserts that the huge craters are the result of subsurface methane gas exploding as global warming heats up Earth. That is far from certain, scientists told Live Science. In fact, the craters may be thousands of years old.
"These craters are recently discovered by scientists," said Katey Walter Anthony, a biogeochemist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who studies methane release from permafrost. "It doesn't mean they are new."
Comment: Is there something much bigger happening on our planet? Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection