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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.
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@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.
@ur momisugly 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
@ur momisugly 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.