SOURCE: Arctic Now
DATE: July 26, 2017
SNIP: Russia’s leading expert on methane explosions on the tundra, Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, tells the Siberian Times that in some places swelling tundra jacks up gas pipes.
His analysis show gas pipelines running over the swelling tundra on the Yamal Peninsula. The region has Russia’s largest and most important natural gas fields and is key to supplying Europe.
The unstable tundra is due to the release of underground methane that had been frozen in permafrost, but is now thawing due to rapidly rising temperatures in the Arctic. Over the last three years, several methane explosions in the Yamal region have created huge craters, some up to 50 meters (about 165 feet) deep and tens of meters in diameter.