Siberia’s ‘Gateway to the Underworld’ expanding rapidly

One of the largest craters on Earth, often referred to as the “gateway to the underworld,” is expanding at a rate of 35 million cubic feet annually. This significant growth is occurring in Serbia’s permafrost region, according to a recent study.

The crater, officially known as Batagay but also called Batagaika, was initially identified in 1991 via satellite imagery. It formed when a part of the hillside in the Yana Uplands of northern Yakutia, Russia, collapsed.

This event exposed ancient layers of permafrost, which have been frozen for as long as 650,000 years, making it the oldest permafrost in Siberia and the second oldest globally.

Recent findings indicate that the cliff face of the Batagay mega slump is retreating about 40 feet (12 meters) per year because of the thawing permafrost. The collapse has also caused the hillside section to continue melting and sinking rapidly.

According to the research team’s study, published on March 31 in the journal Geomorphology, such rapid permafrost thawing is common in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions with ice-rich terrain. However, the volume of ice and sediment lost from the Batagay mega slump is extraordinarily high due to its vast size, which reached 3,250 feet (990 meters) wide by 2023.

In 2014, the slump was 2,600 feet (790 meters) wide, meaning it expanded by 660 feet (200 meters) in under a decade. This study marks the first time researchers have measured the amount of material melting from the crater.

The study revealed that since its collapse, an amount of ice and sediment equivalent to over 14 Great Pyramids of Giza has melted from the mega slump. The melting has been consistently happening for the past decade, primarily along the western, southern, and southeastern edges of the crater.