People send me stuff. This made my day, so I thought it was worth sharing. Remember this?
New pictures of the hole in Yamal – and Pingo was its name-o
Matt Sexton writes via our contact form:
I just wanted to share with you a story that happened to me last night. My HOA had a community potluck and someone brought up the holes that “Had suddenly begun appearing in Russia”. Thanks to your site and the story about those holes, and was able to inform him about the real facts behind what was happening there. I was a little shocked, he is an otherwise intelligent guy, but, I couldn’t believe that he had latched onto the sensational aspects of the story without reading all the facts.
Either way, I thought you would like to hear that your site has positive effects even around small time, everyday things like a HOA potluck.
– Matt
Thanks Matt.
“and though the holes were rather small, they had to count them all” (Lennon-McCartney)
Now they how many holes it takes to scare them awfully, now!
Please excuse my ignorance here at the southernmost tip of darkest Africa, but what is a “HOA potluck”?
[HOA= Home Owners Association – potluck is “bring a dish to community dinner” – mod]
Home Owners Association
I’ll second Matt Sexton’s commendation.
A year ago, a Harvard-educated physician friend telephoned in a panic after being subjected to an alarmist lecture that included sea-level rise. My friend owns a second home on a small creek and had been convinced by the alarmist that his property was in imminent danger.
WUWT’s Reference Pages enabled me to quickly locate a reputable academic source for actual sea level rise. As a result, I was able to point out that 3.2 mm/year (+/- 0.4mm) hardly qualifies as the nightmare scenario that had been painted by the lecturer aboard the cruise ship.
For me, WUWT is an invaluable tool in the fight to counter the incessant alarmist propaganda machine.
Presumably “HOA” = home-owners association, a group of folks that own homes in a specific neighborhood.
Potluck is a meal in which everybody brings something to share and how good the food is depends upon how lucky you are.
Yes and the next phase is to realize you are addicted to WUWT and the efficiency in internet-based learning itself.
Vincent says:
August 6, 2014 at 10:44 am
Please excuse my ignorance here at the southernmost tip of darkest Africa, but what is a “HOA potluck”?
———————–
HOA is HomeOwners Association
Potluck is a dinner where everyone brings a “pot” of food and share.
“Nature” has declared the holes to be due to methane eruptions, not pingos:
http://www.nature.com/news/mysterious-siberian-crater-attributed-to-methane-1.15649
While I’ve been skeptical of the pingo explanation, their evidence of a methane eruption seems really weak. The scientists based their methane eruption hypothesis on the fact that methane concentrations were quite high at the bottom of the hole. However, I would guess that if you dug a hole 70 meters down into methane-hydrate rich permafrost and exposed it to warm summer temperatures, you’ll end up with high methane concentrations even in the absence of an eruption.
Here’s SciAm’s alarmist take on the holes in Yamal:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mysterious-craters-are-just-the-beginning-of-arctic-surprises/
I used WUWT to point out to my kids that the propaganda message they got at school from a guest (activist) lecture about a hot spot in the mid troposphere from human-caused CO2 never happened. I also took the opportunity to point out to them what 400 ppm in the atmosphere is when expressed as a percent. We need some organized content tool to re-educate ourselves and loved ones in place of random responses to the distortion science biz. Thanks again!
Can someone help me out with this?
I know Wikipedia is not a reference (or, indeed, a reliable source of information for many topics). However, lacking knowledge about these things, I looked up Pingos, and found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo.
I really can’t see a relation to the Yamal holes and the images in the Pingo article. Is there a better source of information that would clearly demonstrate this?
Thanks,
And here was the firs post I think.
🙂
And here is the link I forgot.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2006/11/17/welcome-to-watts-up-with-that/
I met a police officer over the weekend who was stunned to hear the temperature of the Earth was the same now as almost 18 years ago. I was able to refer him to the recent article by Monckton. Perfect timing. He said he had been completely sucked into the alarmist narrative and, after a brief tour, is now hungrily reading through the resources available here.
Thanks WUWT for ‘being here’.
Neil: not sure what you’re looking at but the relation is fairly clear to me. Granted the holes aren’t exactly the same altho it is fairly simmple to see that the creation mechanism is identical. But it wouldn’t surprise me to find that some AGW folks have changed the Wiki pics to some that look less like the Yamal holes just to sow confusion and doubt…..
Neil: now I see your point. The Wiki pics are either un’erupted’ or very old pingos. They do not show the characteristic hole as they remain simply expanded and enlarged, or have backfilled with stuff (highly technical term there…) over time. Either way, think of it as an Earth Zit.
Speaking of knowledge holes, it is possible to keep track of commercial shipping using the vaunted Northwest Passage shipping lane in that mostly ice free alarmist reality distortion of the Arctic? I know the tracking number will be precisely zero most of the time, but it would be good to track it possibly with global maritime shipping stats and maritime insurance rates. The alarmists have a purpose in propping up distortion from time to time with the falsehood that there really is an emerging shipping lane there. It serves a purpose for them to fool the low information types. See Bloomberg etc for examples as though it really is a business story.
All these polite definitions of HOA. Has nobody else ever had to deal with an HOA?
All this goes to underline that Some of the People can be Fooled All of the Time. Unfortunately it is fact, and there appears that there is little that we can do except pity them.
Resouceguy, the Canadian government already does. Any vessel attempting a Northwest Passage transit must register with Canada. In 2013, there were 23, including an ice strengthened freighter and two ice strengthened cruise ships. The freighter and one cruise ship made it. The other cruise ship and several other vessels had to be rescued by ice breakers. Some vessels turned around. A French vessel was abandoned for the winter and started an attempt to get out on July 25.
Neil says:
August 6, 2014 at 11:09 am
At this point, I’m not convinced the Yamal things are pingos. I have no idea if they have a name.
The pingo process seems to me outght to be a pretty slow process, and that when things melt, we should be left with a pond of water, almost up to the land surface, especially since other holes are full.
The terrain looks very flat, so that would make artesian water flow unlikely, and would be the only way water could cause something like that to happen in days.
OTOH, I’m also not convinced that methane is a key player, though I can see
some possibilities.
As so often happens, the meaning of “potluck” has changed from its use when first attested in 16th century England. Then, it meant “the luck of the pot”, in that an unexpectedly arriving guest had to take his or her chances with whatever the host had available to eat. Its modern American meaning of “communal meal in which everybody brings something” stems from the 19th century Northwest, derived without changing the word by association with the NW Coast Indian traditions of potlatch. We no longer finish off the evening meal with displays of conspicuous consumption such as ceremonially killing a slave with a weapon designed for that purpose, however.
The casual nature of these encounters with nearly-ubiquitous ignorance highlights how important it is that people arm themselves; it serves, alsow, as a reminder to writers past and future, that they should be as factual and unbiassed as they can in reporting. You owe it to the readership to fact-check, spell-check, self-check (for bias).
Not everybody’s articles need be as laden with facts and support as Chris Monckton’s (for an ideal example), but that’s the right direction.
Bully for you, Matt Sexton! And good job to all who try to shed light into the vast, creepy darkness surrounding the profiteers of anthropogenic climate change.
unbiassed probably should be spelled “unbiased”.
They look.like the pintos I studied in Geomorphogy back in the 1960s
more soylent green! says:
August 6, 2014 at 11:29 am
“All these polite definitions of HOA. Has nobody else ever had to deal with an HOA?”
————————————————————————————————————————
In the past yes so perhaps a better definition would be:
HOA: an association of home owners headed by a homeowner who was duly elected and intended to do the right thing but power went to their head and they became a spendthrift tyrant thinking that they were the sole judge & jury of all things in the entire complex.
I will never again live in a place that has one of these.
D’md auto spell, pingos not pintos.
The odd thing to me, is that the hole seems to have very steep, smooth, regular walls, and resembles a very deep well.
I can not see any explosion leaving a crater like that.
The pingo explanation doesn’t really fit that well either. It doesn’t really explain the deep, smooth “shaft” like appearance.
more soylent green! says:
August 6, 2014 at 11:29 am
The word you are looking for is hoe. As in “garden hoe” or more likely “garden variety hoe”. Urban dictionary would define it differently.
The latest here in Western Washington is our nimrod Governor whupping up a panic over “billions” of immature oysters dying off. He ascribes this to acidification of local waters due to (get ready for it) carbon dioxide. I am asking anyone who has any knowledge of any of this to respond. For the life of me, I hadn’t heard about the die-off, hadn’t read anything on acidification in the eastern Pacific, and I am basically in the dark here.
Thanks
@ Resourceguy
August 6, 2014 at 11:26 am
Have a look at http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/home
It’s a non-military shipping tracker. There’s currently quite a bit of activity around Svalbard and Greenland but not much elsewhere in the Arctic.
Neil says:
August 6, 2014 at 11:09 am
“I really can’t see a relation to the Yamal holes and the images in the Pingo article. Is there a better source of information that would clearly demonstrate this?”
They look like garden – variety sinkholes to me, like the ones that occasionally swallow houses in Florida.
Give yourself another pat! While mine was not a potluck, I had a similar experience and calmly told the other guy that Pingo was its name-o!
@Andrew
Thanks. That may include fishing vessels though, not exactly sea lane material. Some Barents Sea oil development may also show up.
inMAGICn: Cliff Mass Weather Blog has an excellent rebuttal to our state Gubnah Jay “I Will Impose a Carbon Tax Within My Tenure” Inslee’s assertion that a change in atmospheric CO2 (since onset of the Industrial Age) estimated at +/- 000.012% – has caused our local PNW waters to turn into oyster-killing “acid”:
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/11/coastal-ocean-acidification-answering.html
Try using this as a rebuttal to those oyster-chowder heads that scream “Acid! Acid! The Puget Sound is turning to Acid!” in your ear (as well as through the local news sources) as the warmistas/carbon dioxidians attempt to sway those “low-information” types (that are still unfortunately registered to vote in yesterday’s elections – even though the tide appears to be slowly turning locally on that front) into believing a miniscule change in the apparent concentrations of atmospheric CO2 can cause all manner of ills!! even killing those poor, defenseless baby oyster spat!!!
@neil
On that wikipedia page, check out reference 11 ‘ Holmes, William. “Pingos in Central Alaska”. United States Government Printing Office.’
Check out the pictures on pages H28/H29.
Check some of the other references too.
More on the HOA theme.
When my grandson was learning to speak, his great joy was to hear Santa go – Ho! Ho! Ho!
With him sitting on my lap I entered “Santa’s Ho” into an internet search engine.
Bad idea!
I demonstrated CO2 in the atmosphere using a bag of rice. Told the guests present that the bag held 10,000 grains of rice. Removed 4 – CO2 in atmosphere. Attempted to cut one grain into 12
pieces – 1 piece human contribution. Applause. Denialist grade?
I wholeheartedly agree. The reference pages are a great tool against the warmist propaganda.
Of course we all know that the artesian pressure that caused this pingo is totally due to the fraking going on in the gas field 30 km away. /sarc
Oh thank heavens its not just ME philjourdan! I sing that stupid song every time I see the word pingo!
*For those who are lucky enough to have never heard/been forced to sing the song-
“There was a farmer had a dog and BINGO was it’s name-o…B…I…NGO…B…I…NGO….B…I…NGO and Bingo was it’s name-o.”
Repeat again but remain silent when it’s time to sing “B”….then again and remain silent during the “B” and the “I”…..repeat until all letters are silent or until you rig a noose for yourself and kick out a chair. *
Our HOA gets a bad rap, but does a great job. Of course the first thing we did was HIRE an HOA manager who would get fired if the books don’t balance, the community is not maintained, etc. Poor man deserves more than we can afford to pay him to deal with some of the “H.O.”s that’s for sure!
inMAGICn says:
August 6, 2014 at 12:15 pm
The latest here in Western Washington is our nimrod Governor whupping up a panic over “billions” of immature oysters dying off. He ascribes this to acidification of local waters due to (get ready for it) carbon dioxide. I am asking anyone who has any knowledge of any of this to respond. For the life of me, I hadn’t heard about the die-off, hadn’t read anything on acidification in the eastern Pacific, and I am basically in the dark here
Not exactly a field of personal expertise but, as I recall from a previous sortee into this topic some time back, the pH of coastal waters, particularly in your area, are dominated by upwelling deep ocean waters which are lower PH.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n9/full/ngeo1916.html
Microbial biogeochemistry of coastal upwelling regimes in a changing ocean
http://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/upwelling-crisis-ocean-acidification
Both of these are full of the usual overwrought BS(Bad Science) about the oceans becoming more “corrosive”. Of course what most of these babblers choose to attempt to conceal is that for pH a value of 7 is the zero point. Values that move away from 7 to the low side become more acidically “corrosive”, while values that move from 7 to the upside become more “corrosive” as they move toward Lye at the upper extreme, but this would imply that as pH moves from 8.2 to 8.1 it is actually becoming less “corrosive”.
For those not familiar with the, er, joys of a Home Owners’ Association (HOA, otherwise known as the gathering place of the local control freaks/obsessive compulsives), a humorous treatment is given in the movie “Over the Hedge” (ostensibly a kids movie, but works for those of us in our second childhood too 🙂 ).
Granted, HOAs can be really helpful (no purple, pink, fluorescent green, or gunmetal grey houses in the neighborhood…), but also can be a bit of a pain (your front lawn is 1/2 inch too high, you must trim it NOW) (yep, it did happen….). YMMV or YHOAMV…
Give yourself another pat from the southern tip of darkest Africa !
My daughter had read in our local newspapers about the Yamal hole and asked me about it . Bingo Pingo !!I I read out the WUWT info and she was impressed . Thanks , WUWT
Yes, it is a great resource. Thank you, Watts.
I am a lucky man. I am 80 years old and never got trapped into attending a HOA Potluck. But, if luck turns, I will take a large platter of glazed Pingo Holes as my contribution.
@John Coleman – They are not as tasty as donut holes. 😉
Thank you, Michael and Dave.
This oyster thing was on the front page of the Daily Olympian on 8/4. The whole thing caught me off guard. I was unaware of the “crisis.”
Woah, woah, woah! You mean to tell me this blog isn’t strictly about climate change? It’s about any kind of trivia that “we” would find puzzling?
Also, I agree that this site is an excellent source of references. It’s funny that for all the AWG sites out there, they contain virtually no facts. At this site, everything is referenced and the reference page keeps growing over time.
pingo, dome-shaped hill formed in a permafrost area when the hydrostatic pressure of freezing groundwater causes the upheaval of a layer of frozen ground.
(reference: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/461054/pingo )
…
Notice that in the very center of the hole that appeared in Yamal….
http://strangesounds.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/huge-crater-discovered-yamal-peninsula.png
Has a noticeable ABSENCE of an “upheaval”
..
@Ric Werme at 11:41 am
The terrain looks very flat, so that would make artesian water flow unlikely, and would be the only way water could cause something like that to happen in days.
Look at the video still from
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/18/new-pictures-of-the-hole-in-yamal-and-pingo-was-its-name-o/
There is a creek that I think must be the drain away from the Pingo’s summer melt. It starts narrow, and fans out in the distance. I take this to mean that the Pingo is on a monocline and is not flat. I have yet to see Lat and Long for the any of the holes.
I found Facilities for Bovanenkovo at 70 12.5′ N 68 50′ E, elevation 50-60 ft. If you go 20-30 miles from this point, you can see similar terrain NE, SE, and SW. SW as the smoothest terrain but it is more than 30 km away.
But to your point about artesian systems and pressure, the highest elevation I can find in Google Earth in the neighborhood is 240 feet, with many places in the 30-50 ft elevation. So an artesian system is possible, but I grant you it is a stretch. If the hole is at 150 ft, there is not much terrain above it to drive an artesian spring. But if the hole is at 30 ft, you have the head needed to drive a spring, but today the water level would have to be below sea level — a possibility if Gazprom has been pumping hard, but it is a strike against the artesian system theory.
SE high point: 165 ft at 70 05′ N 69 31′ E
NE high point 220 ft at 70 43′ N 70 07′ E
SW high point 152 ft at 60 42′ N 67 41′ E
These are not possible hole locations, but the high points to drive an Artesian system.
inMAGICn says:
August 6, 2014 at 12:15 pm
First rule of WUWT knowledge:
1) There has probably been a post on the subject.
Up near the top of the right-side nav bar is a little search form. Put in oyster. The first hit is http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/21/oyster-crisis-yale-360-wwf-eco-activist-elizabeth-grossman-wrong-again-about-ocean-acidification/
Tada.
If that doesn’t work, then
2) There’s a good chance it’s been discussed in a comment.
The search tool above only looks at the main story (sometimes a feature). Use Google or something like it for searching comments.
For example, if you were curious about how many of us were around for the first Earth Day, Google |”first Earth Day” site:wattsupwiththat.com| and you’ll get a managable list.
More Google Earth:
70d 20′ N 70d 32′ E elev 198 ft.
There is a dense field of lakes, maybe 100 sq. mi. If they connect with the artesian system, it is just what you need to charge the system. North of the 4 big lakes: ozero Neyto
The problem I have with a methane eruption is, methane is only combustible in a narrow band of concentrations. And even then, the most likely source of spark would be lightning.
A sinkhole or Pingo seems more likely than a chance methane eruption.
Resourceguy @ 1252 pm
A good resource for info on Northern Sea Route commercial shipping is http://www.arctic-lio.com
They currently show 36 ships operating there, but none having completed the transit.
I have a friend who loves to post climageddon links on facebook every … single … day.
I often come to the usual sources like WUWT, JoNova, Dr. Curry, Dr. Spencer, etc. to see what the REAL deal is.
Thank you WUWT!
So his latest “we’re doomed” article seems to be actually from a year ago… maybe he’s recycling.
“Study shows rapid retreat of Antarctic permafrost”
see: http://summitcountyvoice.com/2013/08/01/study-shows-rapid-retreat-of-antarctic-permafrost/
is there any WUWT help on this particular climatastrophy?
Wow, that H Grouse commenter here on WUWT seems to want to blame every naturally occurring event on global warming.
RHS says:
August 6, 2014 at 2:38 pm
“The problem I have with a methane eruption is, methane is only combustible in a narrow band of concentrations. And even then, the most likely source of spark would be lightning.
A sinkhole or Pingo seems more likely than a chance methane eruption.”
Researchers who actually visited the hole said there is no evidence of any scorching. The material surrounding the hole is not a debris field from any kind of explosion/eruption (it’s exposed dirt/soil/rock from an upheaval process, the same which can be seen around numerous other holes in the region). The only reason I can think of the continued peddling of the methane explanation is to try to deceive the public and tie it to “climate change”. The thing looks like some kind of pingo-sinkhole hybrid.
garymount says:
August 6, 2014 at 2:57 pm
“Wow”
Re-read my post.
Don’t think I even mentioned “climate”
WUWT is a great science site in general. As a bonus, the comments are often better than the main content at other sites.
Dave W
I must not have been paying attention in 2011. But here we are in 2014 and there is now an oyster crisis…or something.
Thanks for the tips.
Sorry Ric. Got Dave in the system.
Looks like the “absence” of upheaval signs would be because the debris collapsed back into the crater after the ice lens melted. Due to a phenomenon known as gravity – caused possibly by excess CO2 in the debris.
chris moffatt says:
August 6, 2014 at 4:32 pm
“because the debris collapsed back into the crater”
Not only did they do that, but if you look at the rim around the outside of the hole, you’ll see a lot of the debris there too. I guess that was caused by anti-gravity.
garymount says:
Wow, that H Grouse commenter here on WUWT seems to want to blame every naturally occurring event on global warming.
Which just shows you how little he knows.
Just searched Yamal in Google Earth, WOW! That place is hole city! I’d be surprised if they’re not discovering new holes every day! Each hole has turned into a lake of various size as they all eventually do. Interesting exercise.
Apparently, not many geologists/hydro geologists here….in this case, the pingo has developed in an area with subterranean drainage similar to areas that have developed in karst terrain. You had at some point this spring, enough internal structure within the pingo to maintain a small ponding of water. That internal structure was quickly removed through the subterranean drainage system and/or collapsed this summer to its current form…..
I wish I could echo all the “success stories” here … but alas, I’ve been arguing with advocates of CAGW for years and years …. and this site has armed me well …. BUT … stupidity is what it is.
So when I show them a graph that shows there’s been no warming in the last ten years .. they will post a graph starting in 1950 .. and say “is too”! When I show them the recent article that illustates how long wave to space has increased, and long wave down has decreased, they run to Skepticalscience, and point to the nonsense that goes on there.
It just doesn’t seem to matter. Of course, it is all centered in their politics, .. but then they will say I”m the political hack. Oh Well. At least I’m well informed political hack. Thanks WUWT!!
@Dr. Deanster – when they pull up SkS, I pull up the pictures of them in their Nazi Uniforms. That cuts off that line of excuses real fast.
Perfect phil!
I will provide an anecdotal first hand witness account as to an individual with the right to vote and their the effectiveness of a publicly funded education.
The individual was recounting a publicly funded visit to an institute providing emergency medical care by a DNA relative lacking a Y chromosome during the relatives late third trimester of the human body hosting an internal parasite which possesses half of the hosts DNA.
The visitor was entering an early expulsion of the parasite prior to a level of maturity considered normal for parturition. The individual providing an account of the relatives visit carefully explained and described how the medical professionals attending the Y chromosome absent relative was raised nearly to the ceiling of the room to create sufficient separation from the floor to “be above gravity” in an effort to reduce gravities pull on the watermelon sized parasite.
This, my friends, is the level of intelligence I witness as that which is most easily swayed by the Continuing Crises News and it’s associated outlets and parrots.
Anyone remember the Pingu kids TV show? The bratty kid penguin in the antarctic. This story about pingos and the insane warmest theories makes me want to respond exactly how Pingu talked back to parents and adults. “whaa whaa!”
Check out Jacob’s Well in Texas and tell me that doesn’t look like a water filled pingo….
more soylent green Yes, to the most part it been good, but watch out when one extreme or the other tries to rule. My HOA tried to rebuild the joint golf course club house and community center. Yes it would have cost each ot us $6,000.00 dollars but to have a golf course in the development is a plus to each adjacent land owner with a addition premium for lot against the golf course was $10,000.00 dollars back then and now 25,000 plus. But the Luddites prevailed because the vote was not 50% of the lot owners but only 60% of the lot owner whom voted and that was not 50% of the lot owners so a judge threw out the vote. Fortunately the Golf association build their club house and we still have a operating gold course, time will tilll how that works out God forbid they go under and we end up with condos where once was fairways. I hope that does not happen even though both homes I own in the HOA do not abut against the golf course.
@Brian O at 6:37 pm
Each hole has turned into a lake of various size as they all eventually do.
Not necessarily. What seems to be normal is for the earth cap of a pingo to wear away, exposing the ice core to rapid melting. The hydrostatic pressures that allow for less dense ice to raise above the terrain will only allow for water to fill it to ground level or slightly below.
What is different about these holes is that, IF they were open system pingos supported by artesian spring hydrostatic pressures, the pressure in the artesian system has declined by a head of over 100 feet. The ice core lost support and fell in pulling the tundra cap with it. IF that artesian system has dropped in pressure, then many of the old pingo lakes we see in Google Earth, will loose their hydrostatic pressure and they will drain to a lower elevation.
At least it is a prediction.
Don’t even get me started…
Here in Australia the media is still blaming these events on global warming.
Three Thoughts:
1. Gordon Ford says: August 6, 2014 at 12:00 pm
>They look.like the pintos I studied in Geomorphogy back in the 1960s
Yes, Pintos explode. (I know you posted a correction…)
2. more soylent green! says: August 6, 2014 at 11:29 am
>All these polite definitions of HOA. Has nobody else ever had to deal with an HOA?
HOAs are where the Little Hitler’s get their first taste of “power”. What normal people refer to as positions of responsibility. The people in charge create and enforce rules that everyone has to follow, except for themselves and their friends. To get an exception, just volunteer for a committee for a year or two and you can build the unallowed shed, fence, etc.
3. Where is SMosher on this? He’s always trolling around defending all the whack-a-doodle CAGW cr@p.
Love,
Eric
Unfortunately. Denver Post this morning had a featured “world news” article on this today & never even mentioned that there were other interpretations; All they presented is the most alarming position they could (basically saying this is just the beginning & these will be popping up all over the place) and left no doubt that this could only be caused by global warming.
It is evident that this is the sort of thing warmists fantasize about.
Once again, emotion over science.
I’ll add my experience. I work at a hotel in Pennsylvania’s ridge and valley system. We have a newish windmill farm. One day one of the guests mentioned how beautiful the windmills are. My first comment was that they are bird killers (I could have mentioned other rebutals on my mind, this is what came out first). He asked, “How do you know?” I said because they do dead bird counts at the base of the windmills. He changed the subject and said we would be extinct in 500 years because of the increase in extreme weather. I mentioned number of major hurricanes, tornados, etc. are down. He changed the subect again and said we would all be drowned. I mentioned tidal guages don’t support that theory. He finally walked away and as he walked away he said, “I don’t want to talk to you, you know too much.”
Careful Tom, you’ll know too much to stay employed when the guests complain….
Yes, we all have smart friends who have been completely duped by the AGW cabal. Last year one of them asked me if I still thought AGW was a fraud, and I in turn asked him if he could think of anything that might have changed my mind. His only response was, but they keep talking about it…” So in his mind the Leftist truism that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth really is true.
I am convinced that the problem isn’t our friends are stupid, but that they are sheeple and want to be led. They don’t care that it is propaganda or fraud because it is repeated by their valued experts (leaders). What else that says about them is an all-day discussion.
I never really thought of “…and pingo was his name-o” but I did think “the pingo ate my global warming”.
Anywho, for a detailed study of growth and collapse of pingos see:
http://www.erudit.org/revue/gpq/1998/v52/n3/004847ar.pdf
The sides of the pingo (and yes it is a pingo) are vertical and smooth. Only a large plug of ice could produce such an effect. Those who doubt that this could be a pingo have no alternative to offer except some sort of “explosion”. But an explosion could not produce such smooth, vertical sides.
Bill P;
And alsow should definitely be spelled “also”.
Muphry’s Law strikes again!
Mark Luhman says:
August 6, 2014 at 9:40 pm
Oof. Try to do better. We deserve it:
to the most part it been good → for the most part it’s been good
each ot → each of
with a addition premium for lot → an additional premium for a lot
60% of the lot owner whom voted → of the lot owners who voted
association build their → association built their
have a operating gold course → have an operating golf course
time will tilll → tell
both homes I own in the HOA do not abut → neither home … abuts the golf course
13 in a short paragraph makes for unpleasant reading.
Regarding attempts to discuss things with the brainwashed – having been a life-long democrat, I have seen the rest of the democrats morph into Marxists. I am the only one left, I believe.
To get all democrats to segue their views from decent political views to superficially benign totalitarianism, a process similar to cult-indoctrination has been under way.
Cult thinking is sustained in a few distinct ways. If you go study how a cult works, you will see how what we have going on today is quite cult-like.
People feel themselves to be virtuous by having the special knowledge.
They alone have the secret to save the world.
The illogical thought structure must be protected from scrutiny –
so, you need an echo chamber, and to define anything and everything else as bad.
Drudge just today has a story about the some of the architecture of the echo chamber:
A secret google group for journalists, where they hash out how things will be spun.
I jokingly ask associates, every time something that does not fit the cult view, how it will be spun, or what talking point I am supposed to repeat. An example would be this horrible encouragement of children migrating alone to the U.S. -This is terrible foreign policy. Yet, it is all smiles and sunshine for the liberals, and I am labelled racist.
You also need a bad guy to sustain an illogical virtue-cult thought structure. So, when an uncomfortable question comes up, you support your illogical thought architecture with a diversion.
The global warming skeptics keep getting painted as funded by big oil, and or being un-scientific knuckle-dragging Christians. Or both. Those are caricatures, or boogey-men, that liberals have been trained to believe in. Without question.
My point in all of this is to encourage people to talk to those who are only peripherally invested in this virtue cult. But, when encountering a true believer, you have to realize you cannot have a logical discussion with him or her. You will go right down the rabbit hole, and your head wil hurt from the illogic.
It is not stupidity; it is virtue-cult in operation.
“Aphan says:
August 7, 2014 at 10:15 am
Careful Tom, you’ll know too much to stay employed when the guests complain….”
They do complain. If we have Fox News on, they want CNN, if we have CNN on they want Fox (not to mention those who want ESPN). We gladly honor all channel requests for our lobby TV, but if soneone then asks to change the channel we tell them someone still present had already requested what was showing. We have had only one negative review based on ideology. Someone complained we had the tv locked on Fox, That person did not at any time request a channel change. A lot of people will talk and I usually just listen, but something got me going with that person.
BTW, if someone (at the hotel or elsewhere) in a conversation does seem open or asks for more information, I often will recommend this webstie
Jimmy says:
August 6, 2014 at 10:55 am
“The scientists based their methane eruption hypothesis on the fact that methane concentrations were quite high at the bottom of the hole”.
——————-
HA HA, …. that very thing currently happens like 100+- times per week in OH, PA and WV. (see Marcellus Shale)
Like every time a drill-stem “punches” a hole into a pocket of methane.
And on rare occasions that methane concentrations at the bottom of the hole is high enough (>6,000 psi) to “push” that drill-stem back outta the hole …. if it wasn’t connected to the drilling rig.
====================
The above was a touch of trivia, … so as to better explain the following quandary, to wit:
—————
Philip says:
August 6, 2014 at 12:07 pm
“The odd thing to me, is that the hole seems to have very steep, smooth, regular walls, and resembles a very deep well.
I can not see any explosion leaving a crater like that”.
—————-
Iffen the culprit was methane (CH4) then I don’t think any per se fire n’ boom “explosion” occurred.
If the permafrost melting opened up a wee small “hole” into an EXTREMELY high pressure “pocket” of methane …… the force of that NG rushing out thru that wee small “hole” would QUICKLY erode and enlarge the hole’s diameter to look pretty much like what you see in that picture.
Cool, I didn’t think my little anecdotal story would get put on the site 🙂
This is an excellent resource and I respect very much that it presents so much information, including resources to opposing viewpoints. It’s very refreshing to see this, when so much of the internet and media has been dichotimized into an adult version of a grade school argument over which crayon color is best.
Thanks, Anthony, and keep up the great work!
I, too, have offered WUWT to those who had accepted the CAGW narrative because, hey, scientists say so. At a New Years party with the temperature here about -35C, it was a conversation topic and most had bought into the “weird weather” baloney. I countered this with the 17 year pause and recent years cooling globally, discussed the LIA, MWP, glacials and interglacials, higher CO2 levels in the geologic past, etc. and invited them to go to WUWT, visit the resources section, use the search panel, and educate themselves on the topic. A good number of them did do this and were surprised at the information available debunking the hysteria. Yeah, WUWT is special. I’m sure even some of the trolls have even rebooted in reality here.
For those of you that are not convinced that these are pingos : these are actually collapsed pingos. Pore pressure causes permafrost to bulge, starting pingo formation. They grow vertically faster than horizontally and eventually the permafrost at the core of the pingo melts and it collapses, this is what these are. It will soon be a lake, just like the many thousands of lakes in the area. Simply get on Google Earth or Flash Earth and look at the Yamal Peninsula.
@Taphonomic at 8/7 10:36 am
Anywho, for a detailed study of growth and collapse of pingos see:
http://www.erudit.org/revue/gpq/1998/v52/n3/004847ar.pdf
Thanks for that. The collapses they document are really only partial dimpling of the crest.
Pingo 23 (Figure 65, page 46) is as close as we get to the Yamal holes, and with Pingo 23 is a lake with the hydrostatic water table at lake level at just below the surrounding surface. I saw no evidence of any pingo shaft in any of the pingos studied in this paper in the Canadian Mackenzie Delta. There is no evidence that the water table has significantly changed in the pingos studied in this paper.
Anyone who doubts that pingos are associated (sometimes at least) with artesian systems, look at Fig. 5 on page 9. It is a 2.6 meter geyser from a 7.5 cm drill-hole to a depth of 22 m.
I agree these Yamal holes are collapsed pingos, but at Yamal there is something very unusual about the change in the hydrostatic water table that supports the pingo ice. I read it as the hydrostatic water table has fallen by over 100 feet. It is either that or something caused several thousand tons of water to “erupt” out of the hole (which I don’t buy at all).
What might have killed the artesian system in the area? Gazprom’s development of the nearby Bovanenkovo super-giant gas field is at the top of my list of possible causes.
Eric Sincere says:
August 7, 2014 at 7:17 am
1. Gordon Ford says: August 6, 2014 at 12:00 pm
>They look.like the pintos I studied in Geomorphogy back in the 1960s
Yes, Pintos explode. (I know you posted a correction…)
Only when crashed into while stopped on the highway by a truck doing 55 mph (one of the ME profs at WU@StL was a witness for the defense and told us the fact of the famous flaming Pintos).
In one of the SCCA regions, they had a regional class, GTP – Gran Tourismo Pinto – the cars were pretty peppy. I thought it would been more than fun to have a bumper sticker on one of those cars, “Hit Me, I am wearing Nomex.” Sick, but funny.
As for H Grouse…. so you buy into that whole 9-11 Truthers stuff too? Physics is not for you.
Stephen Rasey says:
August 7, 2014 at 4:58 pm
“I agree these Yamal holes are collapsed pingos, but at Yamal there is something very unusual about the change in the hydrostatic water table that supports the pingo ice. I read it as the hydrostatic water table has fallen by over 100 feet. It is either that or something caused several thousand tons of water to “erupt” out of the hole (which I don’t buy at all).”
It may not require the water table to drop that much. It could be something like the pingo ice plug floating and growing on a hydrostatic water table that only varies by a few meters to tens of meters. Over time as the hydrostatic head varies it pushes the ice plug up (or possibly even letting it down as the water table drops) and the ice plug continues to grow. The hydrostatic water table potentiometric surface may never be higher than the land surface. The pingo finally grows to such an extent and a large amount of snowmelt adds to the hydrostatic head pushing the pingo up to break the surface. When the surface is broken, the ice plug is no longer protected by the soil permafrost layer and the plug melts. You wouldn’t see pingos like this on the delta because the potentiometric surface doesn’t vary that much.
@Taphonomic 8/8 11:13 am
Largely in agreement, but…
The hydrostatic water table potentiometric surface may never be higher than the land surface.
Yes, but it will need to be close to the surface. So why do we see a lake at the bottom of a 100+ foot shaft?
To hold up even a 2 meter pingo surface height, will require about a 35 meter thick ice plug, AND a hydrostatic water table at surface level. It’s like an iceberg; 7% of the ice sticks up above the hydrostatic surface. If it is a 70 meter ice plug, you can get 4 meters above the hydrostatic level, so that allows for a hydrostatic surface 2 meters below the ground surface. We cannot escape that leverage.
I don’t think pingos can possibly form when the water table is 30 meters below the surface. It would require a 500 meter long ice core. But when we look at the images of these mysterious holes in Yamal, the water table today is low at least 30 meters below the surface.
These holes are not common, but apparently there are at least three in the same area — probably the same hydrostatic environment.
I might be stuck in some mental recursive loop, but I cannot get around the conclusion that the pingos formed with an artesian or near ground level hydrostatic water table. Then somehow this summer (or possibly last year), the hydrostatic ground water levels have dropped by 30 meters (100 feet) or more. That is a lot when the high point on the Yamal peninsula is only about 240 feet. Could it be a natural, seasonal drop of the water table? Then why don’t we see these things for many years? If it is not a natural seasonal phenomena, what changed? Oh, look, Gazprom is developing a super-giant natural gas field on the horizon, a day’s walk away. Where are they getting their fresh water?
For the CAGW people out there, I can give you this consolation: These Yamal holes are a sign of increases in anthropomorphic greenhouse gas. They are caused by people pumping out freshwater from surface aquifers in the course of developing and increasing methane reserves for future production.
Taphonomic says:
August 8, 2014 at 11:13 am
“It is either that or something caused several thousand tons of water to “erupt” out of the hole (which I don’t buy at all)””.
—————-
Has no one ever heard of “hydraulic mining”? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_mining
The same principle applies but instead of gravity or a mechanical pump being the source of the “pressure” that drives/forces the “flow of water” …… the source of the “pressure” is the underground “pocket” of methane (NG, CH4).
Methane instead of steam like Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone Park, WY.
If the gas pressure decreases, melt-water will fill the hole back up and an ice-plug will form …. and thus the process is “primed” to repeat again. Either next year or a 1,000 years from now.
@Samuel C Cogar 8/9 6:17 am
Hydraulic Mining leave evidence, such as massive tailings deltas and large runoff. We don’t see that. The creek leading away from the hole is covered in vegetation suggesting a slow, clean runoff from summer melt.
As for Methane eruptions instead of steam…
Geysers are driven by heat engines coupled to a positive feedback in the phase change of water into steam as a function of pressure. Liquid water is heated underground in the hydrostatic pressure of several atmospheres. When it begins to boil at those conditions, it spills some water out the top, lowering the confining hydrostatic pressure, lowering the boiling point. More water flashes to steam at depth, spilling more water out the top. It is a positive feedback that creates the geyser until there isn’t enough water left in the system to spill out the top.
I know of no such mechanism that can work for methane, even methane dissolved in water. Even if Yamal had an obvious source of concentrated geothermal energy. The thick permafrost layer we see exposed in the holes argues against a geothermal source.
@ Stephen Rasey – August 10, 2014 at 12:03 pm
“Hydraulic Mining leave evidence, such as massive tailings deltas and large runoff. We don’t see that. The creek leading away from the hole is covered in vegetation suggesting a slow, clean runoff from summer melt”.
——————-
Stephen, I think I said “same principle”, thus your criticism of me was directly contrary to what I was responding to.
Here, see for yourself, to wit, picture and story:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/opinions-divided-over-mysterious-80metre-wide-crater-in-northern-siberia-20140716-ztqvi.html
===============
@ Stephen Rasey –
“I know of no such mechanism that can work for methane, ”
—————
Hopefully you are young enough …… and thus still have plenty of time to learn.
So start with this, to wit:
“13. One of the most troublesome gushers happened on June 23, 1985 at the well #37 at the Tengiz field in Atyrau, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union, where the deep, 4209 metre well blew out and the 200-metres high gusher self-ignited two days later. Oil pressure up to 800 atm and high hydrogen sulfide content had led to the gusher being capped only on 27 July 1986 [13 months later] when the well was closed by the shaped charge.
The total volume of erupted material measured at 4.3 millions metric tons of oil, 1.7 bn m³ of natural gas, and the burning gusher resulted in 890 tons of various mercaptans and more than 900,000 tons of soot released into atmosphere.[17]”
Source ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowout_(well_drilling)
@Samuel C Cogar at 3:24 am
Well you got me with the blowout example.
What I meant was I knew of no example of a methane geyser. But on second though, a drilling blowout is a positive feedback system very similar to a geyser where by once the heavy mud is spilled out the annulus, the confining pressure drops and flow increases. Methane is also in solution at depth, so there is also the phase change from dissolved gas in liquid to free gas as the confining pressure drops. So, a blowout is indeed a geyser, though it doesn’t recharge like a hydrothermal geyser.
Certainly, if you drill into a geopressured gas reservoir with insufficient mud weight, all that stands between you and a blowout are the blowout preventers. And while the example you cite was at 4200 meters, it can happen much shallower, too. 0.8 psi/ft is a good rule of thumb for the lithostatic gradient, the ultimate confining pressure of gas in a reservoir.
But are you suggesting the Yamal 20+ meter diameter, 30+meter deep hole is a methane blowout? That is a lot of earth volume that has to be scattered across the countryside. Sub permafrost gas pockets would only be in the range of 200-300 psi.
Still, I have to admit mud-volcanos have been triggered by drilling operations connecting a high pressure reservoir with a fault that allows blowout pathway to the surface. Gazprom is drilling for gas a few km from the holes. It not impossible Gazprom had a temporary underground blowout where the gas eventually escaped through a pingo weakpoint. I qualify it as temporary because there is little evidence of sustained methane escape from the lake at the bottom of the hole. So, it is possible that Gazprom had an underground blowout that they controlled within a few hours or days, but the escaping gas worked its way to the point of the holes and blew out. But if this were part of the puzzle, I’d expect high concentrations of methane at the vicinity of the holes today from gas depressurizing in the system.
@ Stephen Rasey – August 11, 2014 at 11:48 am
Gas wells are like water wells, you really don’t know what’s down there until you “punch” a hole in the ground. When I said a “pocket” I didn’t mean like a pressurized balloon. The NG is distributed throughout the rock, gravel or whatever is down there and thus the reason for “fraking” a well, which simply means to “fracture” the rock so that the NG will flow toward the well. Thus “fraking” will, hopefully, increase the pressure at the well-head along with flow volume. But some wells have horrendous pressure on them (>6,000 psi) from the “get-go” and thus the reason for the terms “screamer” or “blowout”.
Now I don’t know much about drilling in the far north and the permafrost, etc. But I do know that the NG underneath that permafrost has … potentially …. been accumulating there for the past 3,000 to 7,000 years, starting at the end of the Holocene Climate Optimum (see below) when the permafrost started to per se “re-freeze”. And no one knows how deep that gas is, how much is there or what its psi is until they “punch” a hole.
But iffen it’s a “naturally” formed hole, like the one pictured in the “link” I provided above, I figure it could not possibly have been created by an “explosion”. Thus I figured it had to have been “high pressure” NG escaping, carrying with it liquid water, which eroded the hole’s diameter thru the permafrost with its vertical side-walls as seen in the picture. The high(er) temperature of the water being blown out would have melted the permafrost “lickety split”. (Kinda like peeing into a snowdrift).
And the “outgassed” watery residue would have been dispersed over a wide area …. leaving very little “tale-tale” signs of what had occurred.
But keep in mind now, …. my logical “figuring” is sometimes in err.
“Holocene Treeline History and Climate Change Across Northern Eurasia
Radiocarbon-dated macrofossils are used to document Holocene treeline history across northern Russia (including Siberia). Boreal forest development in this region commenced by 10,000 yr B.P. Over most of Russia, forest advanced to or near the current arctic coastline between 9000 and 7000 yr B.P. and retreated to its present position by between 4000 and 3000 yr B.P.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589499921233
@Samuel C Cogar 8/12 at 4:22 am
Thus I figured it
had to[could] have been “high pressure” NG escaping, carrying with it liquid water, which eroded the hole’s diameter thru the permafrost with its vertical side-walls as seen in the picture. The high(er) temperature of the water being blown out would have melted the permafrost “lickety split”.I’ll agree this is a possibility. In part, it explains why every pingo in the area hasn’t collapsed. If an underground blowout with leakage up a fault to escape via a nearby pingo, it helps answer why it is localized (if it is localized… there are now three). If it was from a general lowering of the artesian water table, I would expect to see many pingo collapses in the near future. So this and later observations about future pingo collapses can resolve the theories.
And the “outgassed” watery residue would have been dispersed over a wide area …. leaving very little “tale-tale” signs of what had occurred.
But if there is outgassing of warm gas+water, it would rapidly and differentially melt the ice core of the pingo. But I would still expect the “plop” of the ice core into the shaft (created by pingo formation over hundreds of years) as it shrank under accelerated melting, rather than significant material shooting out the hole to be deposited far and wide. The outgassing of gas+water is a mechanism for the water level in the hole to be temporarily low. The water level in the holel ought to rise if the regional water table hasn’t changed. Another prediction to help resolve possible theories. I don’t see a plume of melted permafrost soil ejecta as mechanically likely, no in evidence in the reports.
Addendum to 11:03am:
Concerning the crown, or circular moraine, of material around the first Yamal hole.
I still believe this is material extruded as the pingo grew over hundreds of years. The tundra cover was ripped off this material as the ice core “plopped” into the hole. A gas+water leakage under some pressure and velocity would have melted the ice core to accelerate it’s collapse.
Could that gas+water+soil ejecta be the crown of bare material around the hole? I think not, for four reasons:
1. I would expect such ejecta to be deposited more as a slurry, a viscous liquid with solids.
2. In the pictures, the crown looks quite piled up and relatively solid
3. If there was a gas+water+soil ejecta, then the run-off in the creek ought to be choked with sediment. It isn’t. Nearby the hole it is a narrow, steep sided creek, more what I would expect from clear water run-off.
4. The crown is relatively close to the hole and terminates quickly. If it was ejecta, I’d expect it to be more diffuse.
@ Stephen Rasey : August 12, 2014 at 11:03 am
“If it was from a general lowering of the artesian water table, ”
—————
Do not compute. Do not compute. …. Please explain or define: “artesian water table”.
Artesian “pressure” is a function of gravity. See: http://www.ngwa.org/Fundamentals/use/PublishingImages/aquifer_types.gif
==========
“But if there is outgassing of warm gas+water, it would rapidly and differentially melt the ice core of the pingo. But I would still expect the “plop” of the ice core into the shaft (created by pingo formation over hundreds of years) as it shrank under accelerated melting, ”
————-
Me seriously thinks that you should reconsider what you stated therein the above because it appears to me that ….. “you don’t have your ducks lined up in the correct order”.
The correct order is:
1. High pressure outgassing of warm gas+water thru the permafrost creates the pingo, which is little more than the physical hole in the permafrost.
2. Over time, surface water and/or ground water will “seep” into the newly created pingo (hole).
3. Freezing temperatures will cause ice to form on the surface water in the pingo and/or will cause all the water in the pingo to freeze ….. but only if the “water level” in the pingo is close to the land surface. (Well water … WILL NOT FREEZE ….. as long as it remains in the well).
4. If #3 keeps repeating, your per se “ice core plug” will form in said pingo hole.
5. If temperatures, either above or below said “ice core plug”, increase enough to cause melting of said “ice core plug”, ….. said “ice core plug” will not go “plop”, “kerploop” or “kerbang” …. simply because ice is lighter than water.
==============
“Could that gas+water+soil ejecta be the crown of bare material around the hole? I think not, for four reasons:
2. In the pictures, the crown looks quite piled up and relatively solid
4. The crown is relatively close to the hole and terminates quickly. If it was ejecta, I’d expect it to be more diffuse.”
——————
Maybe you would like too explain the crown of ejecta that has built up around these holes, to wit:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/11/21/article-2511115-198D58C000000578-128_634x939.jpg
Sea floor “Black Smokers”: http://latindex.ru/upload/iblock/8c5/kur.jpg
@Samuel C Cogar 8/13 at 5:32 am
Please explain or define: “artesian water table”.
Assuming you know what I mean by “water table”, an “artesian water table” is just an informal way of saying a hydrostatic surface that is above ground level.
The correct order is:
1. High pressure outgassing of warm gas+water thru the permafrost creates the pingo, which is little more than the physical hole in the permafrost.
No way. Fantasy. Pingos are common. They are part of artesian systems or water tables very near the surface.
The high pressure gas+water scenario, what I think has to be an underground blowout that has leaked to the surface from Gazprom drilling in the vicinity, best explains how an existing pingo has failed and “plopped” down a 30+ meter shaft. What I like about the underground blowout scenario is that it explains how a pingo ice core can melt from the bottom and how the supporting water can be removed without the regional water table being affected (and I don’t know it hasn’t.)
Maybe you would like too explain the crown of ejecta that has built up around these holes,
I have. Aug. 12, 11:31 am this thread in reply to you. Also here: Aug 2. 11:10 pm. It is a circular moraine deposited over time as the pingo grew. The pingo is a vertical glacier, a frozen artesian spring that melts at the top and artesian hydrostatic pressure makes rise from below, scraping soil from the sides of the shaft. Even with growth at 2 mm / day, it is a slow process, but glaciers, even vertical ones, are in no hurry.
Addendum:
best explains how an existing pingo has failed and “plopped” down a 30+ meter shaft
It is not the only explanation.
A regional lowering of the hydrostatic head from high volume pumping of fresh water for development of the nearby gas field is a another way to create the gap between the bottom of the pingo ice core and the current water level in the failed pingos. Another way is for some pingo down dip to have melted and are gushing water, but the flat topography of the Yamal peninsula argues against that one.
@ Stephen Rasey: August 13, 2014 at 3:29 pm
“The high pressure gas+water scenario, what I think has to be an underground blowout that has leaked to the surface from Gazprom drilling in the vicinity, best explains how an existing pingo has failed and “plopped” down a 30+ meter shaft.”
———————
YUP, shur nuff, ….. they drilled a few more holes into an NG field ….. and a “blowout” occurred 18.5 miles from the drilling site.
—————-
“The Siberian hole appeared about 30 kilometres (18.5 miles) from Yamal’s biggest gas field, Bovanenkovo, fuelling speculation there had been some sort of underground explosion”.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/opinions-divided-over-mysterious-80metre-wide-crater-in-northern-siberia-20140716-ztqvi.html
—————
Iffen you are gonna have a CH4 (methane) “EXPLOSION” ….. ya gotta have plenty of O2 (oxygen). And deep underground ??? ….. “No way. Fantasy.” … In coal mines, ,,, “YES”.
Now via that picture we know that 30+ meter shaft exists ….. but me thinks the jury is still out as to what actually created it.
2Samuel C Cogar 8/14 at 2:11 am
….. and a “blowout” occurred 18.5 miles from the drilling site.
You’d bet your life on that mileage?
30 km from a supergiant gas field. More likely 30 km from the main pumping station and HQ of a very large gas field. (Good maps are hard to find.) But there are no doubt several drilling pads from which they drill one or more (directional) wells to develop the field.
So until we know where the hole is (I still don’t know its Lat and Long, do you?) and we know where the nearest wells drilled in the past two years, and their offsets, the distance could be anywhere from 0 to 30 km.
But even 10 km away doesn’t preclude an underground blowout as a potential answer. The gas could leak up a fault to a shallower carrier bed, then migrate updip a ways. I have found no geological cross section of the field.
But there is another unusual element here, There is a apparently a thick gas hydrate zone below the permafrost zone. See Figure 1a in Methane Hydrates and Contemporary Climate Change (C. Ruppel 2011). Depending how deep the hydrate zone goes, if the drilling and production of the wells has locally warmed the gas hydrate into a gas phase, that too could find its way to the surface under the right conditions. But on balance, I think this gas hydrate zone would tend to seal up underground blowout gas released at depth.
Best map I have found yet on the gas fields of Yamal. See the second image, near the bottom, of the article. “Yamal Development on Track” Sept. 25, 2008.
http://barentsobserver.com/en/node/21336
This map is better:
Gazprom: Yamal Megaproject. (it seems to have been written no later than early 2009).
http://www.gazprom.com/about/production/projects/mega-yamal/
dangers of cinnamon supplements
@ Stephen Rasey: August 14, 2014 at 5:15 pm
“You’d bet your life on that mileage?
30 km from a supergiant gas field. More likely 30 km from the main pumping station and HQ of a very large gas field”.
——————–
Stephen, I am a scientist. I do not bet on …. imaginations, obfuscations or CYA objectionations.
Now the state of WV could be called a “supergiant gas field” …. with the “rule” being one (1) “shallow” well per 1,000 foot grid. The “deep” wells (Marcellus shale) are restricted to a larger “grid” size
.
Stephen, the purpose of the main pumping station (technical name: compressor station) is not to force the NG back into the underground “gas field” ….. but is to “push” it through the pipeline to its “points” of destination.
==========
“So until we know where the hole is (I still don’t know its Lat and Long, do you?) and we know where the nearest wells drilled in the past two years, and their offsets, the distance could be anywhere from 0 to 30 km”
————
“DUH”, the author of the cited article told us it was 18.5 miles (30 km) from the nearest “well drilling” site. Am I supposed to disbelieve what he/she said just because you “said so”?
==============
“……….. if the drilling and production of the wells has locally warmed the gas hydrate into a gas phase,”
—————–
if the, … if the, … if the hoppy toad had wings ………..!!!
Please explain how that “warm up” of the methane hydrate was possible.
And ps, iffen those gas producers could get to that methane hydrate that easy ……. then they would be ……… “happy campers in hog heaven”.
the author of the cited article told us it was 18.5 miles (30 km) from the nearest “well drilling” site.
No, they said “field”, A large area with uncertain edges under which commercial hydrocarbons are expected to be extracted, with one or more sites built for drilling, pumping, living facilities, warehousing, etc. We don’t know where the Yamal holes are and we don’t know to which part of the field from which they measured their “about 30 km” distance. Maybe it was the HQ, maybe it was the pumping station, maybe (somehow) it was the nearest edge of the field (which I doubt).
Please explain how that “warm up” of the methane hydrate was possible.
The drilling fluids used to drill the well are warmer than the frozen methane hydrate. The Natural gas produced from the conventional deeper reservoirs through the tubing and cased hole penetrating the hydrate layer, is also warmer than the methane hydrate layers. The hydrate will warm up in both circumstances, the methane will dissociate from the ice. It will migrate until it leaks or it cools off and combines with water to form new hydrate.
if the, … if the, … if the
Yes, If, If, If. There is a lot of uncertainty here. Multiple working hypotheses. Some only work under certain conditions the existence of which are unknowns. I’d much rather consider several potential explanations with conditions than hang my hat on one theory prematurely.
Thermal recovery method[change source]
In this method, a well is drilled to the methane hydrate-bearing layer, and methane hydrate is dissociated by heating using a fluid (hot water or steam) heated at the surface in a boiler or similar device and circulated down through the well. This causes methane hydrate to decompose and generates methane gas. The methane gas mixes with the hot water and returns to the surface, where the gas and hot water are separated. Under normal temperature and pressure, one litre methane hydrate is equal to 168 litres methane gas.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_hydrate
Under normal temperature and pressure, one litre methane hydrate is equal to 168 litres methane gas.
Under normal temperature and pressure, there is no methane hydrate. One liter of methane hydrate will yield 168 liters at normal temperature and pressure. This is the phase diagram for Methane Hydrate.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/harrison1/images/f2big.gif
And a Phase Diagram in geologic conditions:
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/harrison1/images/f3big.gif
What is really missing, however, is how much energy does it take to liberate methane from hydrate.
From the Heat of Combustion Tables in Wikipedia, you get 889 kJ/mol CH4. So you only have to burn less than 10% of the production to heat the water to dissociate the hydrate.