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| The Russia-Ukraine conflict threatens the secret 'Gateway to the Underworld'. Pictured: The Batagay sinkhole in Russian Siberia. (Source: Alfred Wgener Institute, Germany) |
The Batagay sinkhole in Siberia, Russia, may hold secrets about life on Earth more than 600,000 years ago, but since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on February 24, 2022, Western researchers have had little access to the site.
Paleontologist Thomas Opel of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany recently revealed his concern that the military campaign is disrupting their entire research on life on Earth and their long-standing cooperation with Russian institutions and researchers.
The Batagay sinkhole, the world's largest frozen landslide, spans 80 hectares and is a massive collapsed hillside in the Yana Highlands of northern Yakutia, Russia. This vast icy region of Siberia is known locally as the "gateway to the underworld".
The Batagay sinkhole is constantly changing and is a useful “window” for geologists. Batagay contains permafrost that is up to 650,000 years old, the oldest in Siberia and the second oldest in the world, after an area in Canada’s Yukon.
As a safe "vault" of 650,000 years of glacial ice, Batagay is a giant sedimentary crater that can reveal what happened to the environment and climate in the region, thanks to the analysis of the chemical composition of the sediment layers.
According to Live Science , new research by paleontologist Thomas Opel's team shows that the giant Batagay sinkhole can be used to reconstruct the Earth's ancient climate and environment. Studying those changes in detail could help people understand more about modern climate change. Permafrost can be used to learn about past temperatures and ecosystems, which could help predict how the modern world will respond to future climate changes.
Since the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in February 2022, Western researchers have had little access to the site. If the subsidence reaches the bedrock, there will be “no more ice-rich material” to sample, says scientist Thomas Opel.
"Nobody knows when that will happen, it could be in 10 years, 50 years or 100 years," the Opel expert expressed concern.
He revealed that the changes here are clearly visible. “The water melts continuously and huge blocks of frozen soil will slide off the mountain and fall down,” the expert warned.
The cause of the decline is still unclear, but researchers believe it is likely linked to deforestation and vibrations caused by heavy machinery.
By disturbing the insulating vegetation on the surface of the subsidence, heat can penetrate deep into the soil, causing the deeply buried permafrost to melt. And with climate change progressing so rapidly, this phenomenon is likely to continue unabated.
Experts believe that more giant sinkholes like Batagay will appear in the coming decades, especially since studies show that the Arctic has been warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world over the past 30 years. Thawing permafrost could have a significant impact on the stability of the planet.
First, some 1,700 billion tons of carbon—thought to be sequestered in this frozen land—will be released into the atmosphere as the ice melts.
Second, disease-causing bacteria trapped in the soil for millennia may begin to emerge.
As for the impact of the Batagay phenomenon on Earth's climate system, which remains unclear, paleontologist Thomas Opel said he and his team are still working to figure out what those impacts were.
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