Max PixelSomeone call Buffy Summers because a colossal hellmouth has just opened up in Russia revealing a glimpse into the past.
It’s not demonic beings hellbent on our destruction behind it opening up though, it’s something far worse, climate change!
The massive crater, known by locals as the ‘doorway to the underworld’, has been created by melting permafrost in the Siberian landscape turning the surface to slush and is just one of a number of holes opening up as temperatures around the world rise.
University of Sussex Even better, the colossal 1km wide, 280ft-deep crater is getting wider and deeper (by about 33 to 99ft every year) as the ice continues to melt.
As the ice melts and the ground collapses around it the crater is also releasing extra greenhouse gases into the environment helping to speed up the process.
It’s not all doom and gloom though, the crater’s revealed a number of long-buried animal bodies and petrified forests which will give scientists an important insight into changing climate.
PBSYou see, in the newly expsoed ground scientists have found layers of pollen and tree stumps which show the land was covered in dense forest.
They also found the remains of a musk ox, a 4,400-year-old horse and an ancient mammoth.
Using both the record of vegetation and animal carcasses, researchers are building up a record of climate change over the course of ten thousand years. It’s hoped that by examining previous shifts in climate they can predict what’s to come in the future.
Wonder if Buffy could take on global warming?
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.