Formation of Gas-Emission Craters in Northern West Siberia: Shallow Controls

Chuvilin, Evgeny; Sokolova, Natalia; Bukhanov, Boris; Davletshina, Dinara; Spasennykh, М.

doi:10.3390/geosciences11090393

Cited by 14 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Studies of perennial heaving mounds (PHM) became relevant after the discovery of a huge gas-emission crater in the northern part of western Siberia in 2014 [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The "gas-emission crater" term is quite well-known; it has already been used in [1,[3][4][5]. The PHM acronym was used in [2] to describe a perennial frost mound.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Step-Wise Workflow for SAR Remote Sensing of Perennial Heaving Mound/Crater on the Yamal Peninsula, Western Siberia

2023

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Climate change in the Arctic region is more significant than in other parts of our planet. One of the manifestations of these changes is crater creation with blowouts of a gas, ice and frozen soil mixture. In this context, dynamics studies of long-term heaving mounds that turn into craters as a result are relevant. A workflow for detecting and assessing anomalous dynamics of heaving mounds in the Arctic regions is proposed. Areas with anomalous increase of ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) backscattering intensity are detected in the first stage. These increases take place due to sudden changes in local terrain slopes when the scattering surface (mound slope) turns toward the radar. Radar backscattering intensity also rises due to depolarization at newly formed frost cracks. Validation of the detected anomaly is carried out at the second stage through a comparison of multi-temporal digital elevation models obtained from bistatic radar interferometry TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X data. At the final stage, the deformations are assessed within the detected areas using differential SAR interferometry (DInSAR) technique by ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 data. The magnitude of the heaving along the line of sight (LOS) was 22–24 cm in the period from January 2019 to January 2020. In general, effectiveness for detecting the perennial heaving mounds and the rate assessment of their increase were demonstrated in the suggested workflow.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…High-resolution images from WorldView-1,2, SPOT-5 satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are mainly used [1][2][3][4][5] to study these craters. However, the use of optical satellite images for the Arctic region study involves the selection of data for a cloudless period during the polar day.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Step-Wise Workflow for SAR Remote Sensing of Perennial Heaving Mound/Crater on the Yamal Peninsula, Western Siberia

2023

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“…It is often accompanied by powerful gas emission from the annular space and thawing haloes of frozen soils around production wells , and decrease in the frozen massive bearing capacity and its integrity. In addition, the appearance of extremal pore pressure occurs in the shallow permafrost, leading to powerful gas explosions, intense methane emission, and the formation of large crater-like landforms. − …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migration of Salt Ions in Frozen Hydrate-Saturated Sand: Effect of Silt and Clay Particles

et al. 2023

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Permafrost composed of sand with silt and clay components may store stable and metastable gas hydrates, which can lose stability under a flux of dissolved salts from natural or production-related solutions (seawater, brines from cryopegs, drilling fluids, etc.). The flux of salt ions is controlled externally by temperature and pressure as well as by the salinity of solutions and the properties of fine-grained (<0.05 mm) components in permafrost. The effect of silt and clay percentage and mineralogy (kaolinite or montmorillonite) on the patterns of salt and water transport and the related dissociation of pore gas hydrates in frozen sand is studied in laboratory experiments. The experiments are conducted in conditions that can maintain the self-preservation of gas hydrates: a constant negative temperature of −6 °C and a pressure of 0.1 MPa. Sediments with higher clay percentages show slower migration and accumulation of salt ions and the higher critical salt concentration required for the onset of gas hydrate dissociation. The flux of Na+ to sand samples containing montmorillonite is lower than to those with kaolinite. On the other hand, salt migration and hydrate dissociation are faster in sand with higher silt contents. The experimental results form the basis for a generalized model of main mechanisms that drive salt transport in frozen hydrate-bearing sediments interacting with saline solutions.

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“…For example, the nearby Bolavenkovo field has an average gas flow rate of 500 m 3 /day, with one well reporting over 14,000 m 3 /day. [18][19][20] As the volume and pressure of the gas increase under an impermeable cap, the cracks and pores form small cavities or ephemeral cryopegs. These eventually merge via melting, fracturing, or ductile deformation of the surrounding frozen ground, during which time the overlying ice and permafrost flex upward to accommodate the increasing gas volume at depth.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formation of the Siberian Yamal gas emission crater via accumulation and explosive release of gas within permafrost

Schurmeier,

Brouwer,

Fagents

2023

Permafrost & Periglacial

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The Arctic landscape has experienced many dramatic forms of change due to anthropogenic warming. Large crater‐like forms surrounded by fragmented blocks scattered outward to great distances with precursor mounds appeared in the continuous permafrost zone of the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas of Western Siberia. The morphologies of these craters, in addition to the abundant evidence of active and intense gas emissions across the region, indicate that they formed due the subsurface accumulation, pressurization, and explosive release of gasses trapped within the permafrost. Therefore, these craters were termed “gas emission craters” (GEC). However, some have suggested that in addition to gas accumulation, these features form in a manner similar to ice‐cored pingos and require pressurization due to the freezing of subsurface ice. This is despite the fact that not all GECs form in areas conducive to pingo‐like ice accumulation. Here, we test whether the pressurization and explosive release of methane gas alone can reproduce the observed morphology of the first‐discovered and most intensely studied GEC, Yamal crater. We use the available field and satellite data to constrain the initial dimension parameters of a model of the explosion process and consider several plausible configurations for the unknown interior cavity shape, the overlying permafrost cap thickness, and gas chamber volume. The explosion process is modeled in phases: gas migrates upward and accumulates in the subsurface until the gas pressure fractures the overlying cap, the expanding gas and cap blocks are initially accelerated outward together, and then the blocks are launched as projectiles. The sizes and locations of the ejected blocks found at Yamal crater are used to determine the initial gas pressures required to launch those projectiles to the observed locations. Finally, we estimate the amount of gas released in each of the multiple model runs testing different plausible internal cavity geometries. For the range of plausible block sizes and densities, and a subset of gas chamber volumes considered, we find that the gas pressure (0.6–2.6 MPa) required to launch the Yamal crater blocks to their observed distances was within the range of the sum of the ice/permafrost tensile strength and the lithostatic pressure (0.22–2.87 MPa). Thus, the observed blocks could have been launched by the energy required to fracture and displace the overlying permafrost cap. We show that the mechanism of formation of this GEC does not require pressure from the freezing of ice in the subsurface to crack and explode the overlying permafrost—gas pressure alone can produce these GECs. We expect that as our planet warms, the Siberian permafrost will continue to warm, weaken, and release gasses such as the greenhouse gas methane, and contribute to a permafrost carbon‐positive feedback cycle that would lead to the formation of even more explosive GECs.

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Formation of Gas-Emission Craters in Northern West Siberia: Shallow Controls

Cited by 14 publications

References 25 publications

A Step-Wise Workflow for SAR Remote Sensing of Perennial Heaving Mound/Crater on the Yamal Peninsula, Western Siberia

A Step-Wise Workflow for SAR Remote Sensing of Perennial Heaving Mound/Crater on the Yamal Peninsula, Western Siberia

Migration of Salt Ions in Frozen Hydrate-Saturated Sand: Effect of Silt and Clay Particles

Formation of the Siberian Yamal gas emission crater via accumulation and explosive release of gas within permafrost

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