Patomskiy Crater

Patomskiy Crater – Discovered by Vadim Kolpakov, 1949

Patomskiy crater was discovered by Vadim Kolpakov in 1949 and is one of the most scientific mysterious ever discovered. The site is in Irkutsk, Siberia with a huge convex cone having a funnel shaped recess with rounded hill in the middle that looks like an eagle’s nest with an egg nestled in it.

It resembles a lunar crater by size and appearance and at first sight it seems like an artificial mound of waste rock which has been formed usually by underground mining of coal or some other mineral. Its height is 40 meters and when viewed from above it seems to be a perfectly round top of volcano though volcanoes did not appear in these regions during the few millions of year. The crater has a semi-circular dome at its centre with a diameter of 12 meters.

 For many years, scientists have been overwhelmed by the origin of the Patomskiy crater which has been named after a nearby river and the theories of its existence has varied from a nuclear blast to a secret gulag mine and a meteorite strike. Scientists have various presumptions like the trail of a large meteorite fall, the consequence of deep gas discovery or that the crater has volcanic origin.

Presence of High Water at Site 

The presence of high water at the site have been found from the samples taken by astronomers and geologists bringing in new theory that it is cryovolcano that erupts water, methane and ammonia compounds, which rose from the release of ice under the rock, both in liquid as well as in the gaseous state.

The first cryovolvano was discovered on Titan ice moon of Saturn. As per the UK MailOnline, it is presumed that the site could have been created by a meteorite strike though no evidence is available to support the theory. Vadim, responsible in the discovery of the crater, tried though failed to arrange a scientific trip to examine the site.

However, numerous expeditions have taken place since then and samples collected in 2013. According to UK MailOnline, it was reported that `last year, half a ton of sample was taken from the site and removed by helicopter and the samples led scientists to discard ideas of a uranium ore explosion since the background radiation at the site was low with no uranium found in the nearby area’.

Options of Two Main Theories – Volcano/Meteorite

This left them to the presumptions of two main theories, one of a volcano and the other of a meteorite. However according to UK MailOnline report, it was stated that the site had no indication of any meteoritic material and the area was not thought to be a volcanic area.

There were no volcanoes within thousands of kilometres of the Patomskiy crater and more over it seemed to be quite new. UK MailOnline had reported that `scientists presumed that the crater were only 100 to 500 years old and could have been the cause of the Tunguska meteorite that had fallen in the Krasnoyarsk region in 1908. However the crater was never discovered.

It is believed that the meteorite was seen just 70 km away from the `eagle’s nest, the distance of which is around 10 to 15 seconds of flight’.