What is the enormous peninsula in eastern siberia

A researcher climbs down the Erkuta crater. The study, which was published in June, showed that gases, mostly methane, can accumulate in the upper layers of permafrost from multiple sources -- both from the deep layers of the Earth and closer to the surface. The accumulation of these gases can create pressure that is strong enough to burst through the upper layers of frozen ground, scattering earth and rocks and creating the crater. With the Erkuta crater, the scientists' model suggested that it formed in a dried-up lake that probably had something called an underlake talik -- a zone of unfrozen soils that started freezing gradually after the lake had dried out, building up the stress that was ultimately released in a powerful explosion -- a type of ice volcano.

It is a potential threat to human activity in the Arctic, and we need to thoroughly study how gases, especially methane, are accumulated in the top layers of the permafrost and which conditions can cause the situation to go extreme," Chuvilin noted.

Cryosphere refers to portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form -- ice. But this is still something that needs to be researched," Chuvilin said. He said his team will publish more detailed information on the newest crater shortly in a scientific journal.

He added it's one of the biggest found so far. Extreme summers. Marina Leibman, a Russian permafrost expert at the Earth Cryosphere Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, was part of a team of researchers who have analyzed five gas emission craters using remote sensing data and field surveys.

Siberia had its warmest June ever as wildfires raged and carbon dioxide emissions surged. The researchers found the craters shared some similar features, most notably a 2- to 6-meter-high mound that formed before the explosion.

The craters were all also located on gentle slopes and had a lower portion that was cylindrical like a can before opening into a funnel, with the opening diameter around 20 to 25 meters wide. The explosions all ejected ground ice, which in some cases leaves holes where huge frozen blocks have fallen on the surface.

Leibman believed that extremely hot summers in the region in and , and again this year, may have played a role in the growth and blowout of these mounds. The mounds appear and explode within as a little as three to five years. The formation of all GECs gas emission craters was preceded by anomalously warm summers," the study, which published in July this year, said.

Temperatures in an Arctic Siberian town hit degrees, a new high. She said the methane accumulates in a feature known as a cryopeg -- a layer of unfrozen ground that never freezes because of its salt content below a table of ground ice -- and acts as a trap. The gas then escapes, deforming the ice and earth, to form a mound.

And when "heat struck" during a warm summer, the mounds blew out, creating the spectacular craters. Leibman believed the craters are likely unique to this area of the Arctic because few other areas share the features she thinks are necessary for the holes to form -- a combination of table-like ground ice close to the surface, continuous permafrost saturated with methane, and unfrozen ground with saline deposits below the ice. None of these features have been discovered or reported in the Alaskan or Canadian arctic, according to Susan Natali, the Arctic program director at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, who is using satellite data to try to identify and map craters that haven't been seen with human eyes.

When Natali first heard about these craters, she noted, "It seemed liked such a crazy thing but sure enough they're real. People haven't seen that many but they're happening and they continue to happen. Climate change. Very few people have witnessed any of these explosions take place, but they do pose a risk to the people who live in these remote regions and oil and gas infrastructure, said Vasily Bogoyavlensky, a professor at the Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

He spoke to a reindeer herder who witnessed a massive explosion of a mound on a river channel in the Yamal Peninsula in Beavers are gnawing away at the Arctic permafrost, and that's bad for the planet.

She could have been killed," he said. Other craters have formed less than 3 kilometers from railways and an oil pipeline, he added. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Caucasus region has been the main location of unrest within Russia. Wars between Russia and groups in the Caucasus have claimed thousands of lives. Some of the non-Russian territories of the Caucasus would like to become independent, but Russia fears an unraveling of its country if their secession is allowed to proceed.

To understand why the Russians have fought the independence of places such as Chechnya but did not fight against the independence of other former Soviet states in the Caucasus such as Armenia , it is necessary to study the administrative structure of Russia itself.

Of the twenty-one republics, eight are located in southern Russia in the Caucasus region. Although other territories to the south of Chechnya, such as Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, also declared their independence from Russia after , they were never administratively part of Russia.

During the Soviet era, those countries were classified as Soviet Socialist Republics, so it was easy for them to become independent countries when all the other republics e. After , Russia decided that it would not allow territories that had been administratively governed by Russia to secede and has fought wars to prevent that from happening. It feared the consequences if all twenty-one republics within the Russian Federation were declared independent countries.

The First Chechen War —96 ended in a stalemate, and Russia allowed the Chechens to have de facto independence for several years. Between twenty-five thousand and fifty thousand Chechens were killed in the war, and between five thousand and eleven thousand Russian soldiers were also killed Wikipedia.

Reconstruction of Grozny has slowly begun. Even before the recent wars, Chechnya had a difficult past. Over the course of its history, it has been at the boundary between the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire, and the Russian Empire. Most of the people converted to Sunni Islam in the s to curry favor with the Ottomans and seek their protection against Russian encroachment. Nevertheless, Chechnya was annexed by the Russian Empire.

The independent countries of Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan make up the region of Transcaucasia. Although they are independent countries, they are included in this chapter because they have more ties to Russia than to the region of Southwest Asia to their south.

They have been inextricably connected to Russia ever since they were annexed by the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and they were all former republics within the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed in , these three small republics declared independence and separated from the rest of what became Russia.

Geographically, these three countries are located on the border between the European and Asian continents. The Caucasus Mountain range is considered the dividing line. The region known as Transcaucasia is generally designated as the southern portion of the Caucasus Mountain area.

The country of Georgia has a long history of ancient kingdoms and a golden age including invasions by the Mongols, Ottomans, Persians, and Russians. For a brief three years—from to —Georgia was independent.

After fighting an unsuccessful war to remain free after the Russian Revolution, Georgia was absorbed into the Soviet Union. Since it declared independence in , the country has struggled to gain a stable footing within the world community. Unrest in the regions of South Ossetia , Abkhazia , and Adjara where the populations are generally not ethnic Georgian has destabilized the country, making it more difficult to engage in the global economy.

Russia and Georgia had a military conflict in , when Russian troops entered the South Ossetian region to support its move toward independence from Georgia. Georgia considered South Ossetia to be a part of Georgia and called the Russians an occupying force.

Many other countries, including the United States, condemned Russia for their action. A democratic-style central government has emerged in Georgia, and economic support has been provided by international aid and foreign investments. The country has made the switch from the old Soviet command economy to a free-market economy. In , Armenia, to the south of Georgia, had a population of only about three million in a physical area smaller in size than the US state of Maryland.

It is a country with its own distinctive alphabet and language and was the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion, an event traditionally dated to CE. The small landlocked country has experienced invasions from every empire that controlled the region throughout history.

The geographic area of the country decreased when the Ottoman Empire took control of western Armenia, and that region remains a part of Turkey to this day. A bitter conflict between Turks and Armenians during World War I resulted in the systematic deaths of as many as a million Armenians.

Like the other former Soviet republics, Armenia has shifted from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. Since then, its manufacturing sector has declined and Armenia has fallen back on agriculture and financial remittances from the approximately eight million Armenians living abroad to support its economy. Azerbaijan is an independent country to the east of Armenia bordering the Caspian Sea.

It is about the same size in area as the US state of Maine. This former Soviet republic has a population of more than eight million in which more than 90 percent follow Islam. Azerbaijan shares a border with the northern province of Iran, which is also called Azerbaijan. Part of Azerbaijan is located on the western side of Armenia and is separated from the rest of the country. Located on the shores of the Caspian Sea, Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan and is the largest city in the region, with a population approaching two million.

During the Cold War era, it was one of the top five largest cities in the Soviet Union. The long history of this vibrant city and the infusion of oil revenues have given rise to a metropolitan center of activity that has attracted global business interests. Wealth has not been evenly distributed in the country, and at least one-fourth of the population still lives below the poverty line.

Azerbaijan is rich with oil reserves. Petroleum was discovered here in the eighth century, and hand-dug oil wells produced oil as early as the fifteenth century. Since the Industrial Revolution, the rising value of petroleum for energy increased the industrial extraction of oil in Azerbaijan. At the end of the nineteenth century, this small country produced half the oil in the world.

Large oil reserves are located beneath the Caspian Sea, and offshore wells with pipelines to shore have expanded throughout the Caspian Basin. As much as the export of oil and natural gas has been an economic support for the country, it has not been without costs to the environment. According to US government sources, local scientists consider parts of Azerbaijan to be some of the most devastated environmental areas in the world.

Serious air, soil, and water pollution exist due to uncontrolled oil spills and the heavy use of chemicals in the agricultural sector. Most of the cities on the Barents Sea and in the Eastern Frontier were established for manufacturing or for the exploitation of raw materials. The Volga River and its tributaries have been an important transportation network for centuries.

The Volga is the longest river in Europe. Very few people live in Siberia, but the region is rich with natural resources. The most contentious region in Russia is the Caucasus Mountain region, especially the area of Chechnya. The Caucasus is characterized by ethnic and religious diversity and by a desire for independence from Russia. South of Russia in the Caucasus is the region of Transcaucasia. It is ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse.

Countries there are independent of Russia, although they have a long history of being part of the Russian and Soviet Empires. Some of the countries are rich in petroleum reserves.

What are some of the major environmental problems in Russia and Transcaucasia? What is the relationship between the countries of Georgia and Russia? Describe their conflict. What happened to Chechnya? What are the three independent countries of Transcaucasia, and when did they gain independence from Russia? Which of the three Transcaucasian countries has the least opportunity to gain wealth?