A ~20–30 m near-cylindrical hole punched through West-Siberian permafrost, ringed by ejected frozen blocks and a spike of methane at the rim. First found in 2014 near Bovanenkovo (GEC-1). Unlike its sibling ball lightning, this one is EXPLAINED: a pressure blowout. This panel is runnable — it holds the rupture threshold, a frozen cap fails when Pgas ≥ Patm + ρgh + σt, and proves the honest thing: a thin cap blows out, a very deep cap does not, and a meteor is the wrong signature. This is THE WEIRD, resolved.
source Yamal / Gydan gas-emission craters (GECs), West Siberia; GEC-1 found 2014 ∼30 km SE of the Bovanenkovo gas field. Leibman, Kizyakov et al. and the GEC literature; near-bottom dissolved methane in lake GEC-1 measured at 824–968 ppm. Room: THE WEIRD — the pressure-threshold physics is LIT; exact field numbers AMBER; the impact/missile claims DEAD.
Yamal means “the end of the earth” in Nenets. In the summer of 2014, reindeer herders and a helicopter crew reported a fresh ~20 m hole in the tundra — GEC-1 — about 30 km southeast of the Bovanenkovo gas field. It plunged tens of metres, its rim heaped with chunks of frozen ground thrown outward.
A datable, photographed, revisited landform — but the exact pre-event ground state was not instrumented, so specific field figures stay AMBER: real record, honestly held.
The recurring portrait across the eight GECs found on Yamal and Gydan: a deep, near-cylindrical shaft (tens of metres); radial frozen ejecta around a parapet rim; a high methane anomaly at the rim; and, within a few seasons, the shaft fills to a small lake (GEC-1: initial 50–70 m → a 3–5 m lake).
Those four facts — cylindrical, radial frozen ejecta, rim methane, later a lake — are what a mechanism must fit. They are the inputs to the engine at centre. Compiled observation: AMBER.
Warming permafrost releases gas — methane from dissociating gas hydrates and CO₂/CH₄ from thawing cryopegs (salty unfrozen lenses). The gas accumulates under a frozen cap, heaving a mound. When internal pressure exceeds what the cap can hold, the cap ruptures and ejects the ground.
The pressure-threshold physics is LIT; the specific hydrate-dissociation pressures and field depths are AMBER (interpretation of an under-instrumented, evolving landform).
Set the frozen cap’s thickness and density, plus the tensile strength of the frozen ground and the gas pressure building beneath it. The engine forms the overburden the cap carries and asks: does it hold, or blow out?
Pover = ρ g h (weight of the ice-rich cap, g = 9.81); the cap fails iff Pgas ≥ Patm + Pover + σt. Patm = 0.101 MPa. Deeper cap → larger Pover → needs higher Pgas to burst.
Threshold: Pfail = Patm + ρgh + σt. Deeper caps hold harder (Pover ∝ h). Scan of cap depth at the current gas pressure — a thin cap blows, a deep cap holds:
| h (m) | Pover (MPa) | Pfail (MPa) | vs Pgas |
|---|
The margin (Pgas − Pfail): —. Positive → the cap ruptures and ejects the ground; negative → it holds. The transition depth is —.
| origin on trial | cylindrical shaft? | frozen radial ejecta? | rim methane spike? | fits? |
|---|
A gas blowout matches all three marks — the shaft, the frozen radial ejecta, and the rim methane. A meteor impact fails every one (a bolide leaves a raised shock-ejecta rim with melt and shatter, not radially strewn frozen blocks, and no methane spike). So the honest verdict is EXPLAINED — gas blowout, and impact is DEAD.
What stays AMBER. The exact pre-event pressures, cap depths, and how much comes from hydrate vs cryopeg vs warming permafrost are still being pinned down. The mechanism is LIT; the precise field numbers are AMBER — a monitoring and quantification problem, not a mystery.
Lineage — the family of frost forms (AMBER):
Pingos / bulgunniakhs: ice-cored mounds that heave and collapse — the near-surface cousin of the gas-charged mound.
Arctic methane release: the GECs are a vivid, local expression of a warming-permafrost carbon problem — a monitoring question, not a portal.
“A meteor / a secret missile strike / a sinkhole to nowhere / an alien entrance.” Cut. The signature is an internal gas explosion: frozen blocks thrown outward, a methane spike at the rim, no shock-melt, no crater ray. What is buried is the fringe origin — DEAD.
The red move: point at the round hole and say “a meteor impact dug this crater” — ignoring the signature. The engine calls it: an impact leaves a raised shock-ejecta rim with melt and shatter and cannot strew frozen ground radially or spike the rim with methane.
Claim “a meteor impact dug the crater” and the witness (5) tests the impact signature against what is seen — frozen radial ejecta and a rim methane spike, which an impact cannot produce — so it turns red. The evidence is an internal gas blowout, not an impact.