Inside the Yamal Crater: Photos from the 2014 Descent into Siberia's Hole

On 8 November 2014 a team from the Russian Centre of Arctic Exploration lowered itself on ropes into the giant hole that had appeared on Siberia's Yamal Peninsula that summer. Their photographs gave the world its first look inside the Yamal crater: sheer walls of frozen ground striped with ice, and a frozen floor far below the tundra.

The Yamal crater, discovered in 2014

The Yamal Peninsula juts into the Kara Sea in north-western Siberia. Its name is often translated as "the end of the world", and it sits on top of some of Russia's largest natural gas fields. In July 2014 reports emerged of a round hole with a ring of thrown-out earth around it, about 30 km south of the Bovanenkovo gas field.

The crater measured roughly 60 to 70 metres across at its widest point. Pictures of the dark opening travelled around the world within days, along with guesses ranging from meteorites to secret weapons. Scientists quickly focused on something more down to earth: gas trapped in the permafrost.

Inside the crater: the November 2014 descent

In summer the thawing walls were too unstable for a descent. The expedition led by Vladimir Pushkarev, director of the Russian Centre of Arctic Exploration, waited until the cold had frozen the walls solid. With temperatures around −11 °C, a climber abseiled down to the frozen floor, which National Geographic reported lay about 16.5 m below the rim, and the team collected ice and soil samples and took measurements.

The photographs show what makes the place so striking: layered walls of permafrost and ice, carved into curtains and ledges, with blue-white ice glowing in the dim light. The ropes and small human figures give a sense of how deep the shaft is.

What caused the Siberian craters

The Yamal crater turned out to be the first of a series. Researchers have since recorded more craters on the Yamal and neighbouring Gydan peninsulas, including a new one in August 2020. Geologist surveys described in GeoExpro put the depth of the original crater at around 50 m and noted that by July 2015 it was almost filled with water, on its way to becoming an ordinary tundra lake.

The leading explanation is an explosive release of gas. In 2024, scientists Ana Morgado, Luís Rocha, Julyan Cartwright and Silvana Cardoso published a model in Geophysical Research Letters. As summers warm, the thawed layer at the surface gets deeper. Meltwater seeps into a salty, unfrozen layer below called a cryopeg, pressure builds up, cracks open towards the surface and a sudden drop in pressure releases methane from gas hydrates. The ground blows out, leaving a crater. According to the model, the build-up can take decades.

More about Siberia and frozen landscapes

• Siberia’s Gas-Emission Craters: What the Yamal Evidence Actually Shows
• Before-and-after photos of melting glaciers
• Lake Baikal Ice Percussion with irkDarbuka
• Chara Sands: Dunes Beside the Mountains of Trans-Baikal
• A Car Recovered from an Opening in Lake Ice
• Thirteen Crater-Lake Landscapes: Calderas, Volcanic Craters and an Impact