What Are Megaslumps and How Do They Threaten Our Planet?

Mega slumps are opening up across the Arctic. Megaslumps are what happen as the permafrost (frozen soil) thaws and the land that was lockedaround the permafrost loosens and settles into a slump. As a consequence, Greenhouse Gas is released into the atmosphere, causing the Earth to warm even more and melt even more permafrost. It's a dangerous trend we're in right now.

Massive "slumps" are forming like a pox across the Northern Hemisphere — deep craters that appear like gateways to the underworld — and they could represent an ominous sign of what's to come, reports The Independent. The largest of these so-called megaslumps is Batagaika crater in Siberia, a kilometer-long crevasse that's 90 meters deep. The unusual chasm appears almost as if the land is turning itself inside out. Even more frightening, it's widening by up to 20 meters a year, slowly encroaching upon the landscape like a living thing. The cause of these eerie sinkholes is melting permafrost — the frozen soil and rock that makes up the bulk of the Arctic landscape. As our planet continues to warm, the permafrost thaws and the Earth loosens and slumps. This process not only disfigures the terrain, but it also releases dangerous greenhouse gases into the air that had otherwise been trapped by the frozen ground's grip.
The land has so rapidly opened up that the decaying remains of long-dead mammoths, musk ox and horses can sometimes be seen. Ancient tree stumps protrude from the ground. It's understandable why some people have likened these fissures to gateways to the underworld.

What says ATS?

www.mnn.com...

a reply to: lostbook

the decaying remains of long-dead mammoths, musk ox and horses can sometimes be seen. Ancient tree stumps protrude from the ground.

Musk ox? Horses? Big tree stumps?

Seems to me like it's not the first time permafrost thawed there. Sometime in the past there was a whole forest there.

Maybe the cilmate is going full circle? Remember we are still technically in an ice age - as long as there are ice caps left.

I don't think the Earth is "threatened" by interglacial periods... Sure they suck, but it'll take more than that to "threaten" the entire biosphere.

www.geocraft.com...

For more than 2 million years our earth has cycled in and out of Ice Ages, accompanied by massive ice sheets accumulating over polar landmasses and a cold, desert-like global climate. Although the tropics during the Ice Age were still tropical, the temperate regions and sub-tropical regions were markedly different than they are today. There is a strong correlation between temperature and CO2 concentrations during this time.
Historically, glacial cycles of about 100,000 years are interupted by brief warm interglacial periods-- like the one we enjoy today. Changes in both temperatures and CO2 are considerable and generally synchronized, according to data analysis from ice and air samples collected over the last half century from permanent glaciers in Antarctica and other places.
Interglacial periods of 15,000- 20,000 years provide a brief respite from the normal state of our natural world-- an Ice Age Climate. Our present interglacial vacation from the last Ice Age began about 18,000 years ago. Over the last 400,000 years the natural upper limit of atmospheric CO2 concentrations is assumed from the ice core data to be about 300 ppm. Other studies using proxy such as plant stomata, however, indicate this may closer to the average value, at least over the last 15,000 years.
Today, CO2 concentrations worldwide average about 380 ppm. Compared to former geologic periods, concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere are still very small and may not have a statistically measurable effect on global temperatures.

For example, during the Ordovician Period 460 million years ago CO2 concentrations were 4400 ppm while temperatures then were about the same as they are today. Do rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations cause increasing global temperatures, or could it be the other way around? This is one of the questions being debated today. Interestingly, CO2 lags an average of about 800 years behind the temperature changes-- confirming that CO2 is not the cause of the temperature increases. One thing is certain-- earth's climate has been warming and cooling on it's own for at least the last 400,000 years, as the data below show. At year 18,000 and counting in our current interglacial vacation from the Ice Age, we may be due-- some say overdue-- for return to another icehouse climate!

I honestly don't believe 'we" are the cause. We may have a very, very small bit to do with it, but records show the Earth has been going through warming and cooling periods, with an increase and decrease in CO2, much longer than modern man has been burning fossil fuels. The Earth is going to do what it always does....what ever it wants and we have very little say in it.

a reply to: DAVID64

I don't think humans are the cause either but I do think we're accelerating the process.

a reply to: swanne

I don't think the Earth is "threatened" by interglacial periods... Sure they suck, but it'll take more than that to "threaten" the entire biosphere.

You mean like pumping man made toxins into the biosphere?

I wonder if there are signs of this during the end of the last glaciation? I know we have the Carolina Bay phenomenon....which is typically suggested to be a celestial event, but not really conclusively proven. Could that be what the Carolina Bays formed from?

How about Canada? Are there structures such as this resulting from the last glacial melt?

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: swanne

I don't think the Earth is "threatened" by interglacial periods... Sure they suck, but it'll take more than that to "threaten" the entire biosphere.

You mean like pumping man made toxins into the biosphere?

Yes, and pumping toxins into the oceans such as fertilizer(s), corexit, nuclear waste from Fukushima, etc...
Some people say that humans aren't doing much to hurt the Earth but we really are.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
I wonder if there are signs of this during the end of the last glaciation? I know we have the Carolina Bay phenomenon....which is typically suggested to be a celestial event, but not really conclusively proven. Could that be what the Carolina Bays formed from?

How about Canada? Are there structures such as this resulting from the last glacial melt?

Excellent question(s).

a reply to: lostbook

that is a really interesting article...and that picture...looks like swiss cheese..I never heard of this before,but will read up on it for sure.

a reply to: DAVID64

Do rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations cause increasing global temperatures, or could it be the other way around? This is one of the questions being debated today.

Not among scientists.

Interestingly, CO2 lags an average of about 800 years behind the temperature changes-- confirming that CO2 is not the cause of the temperature increases.

This is wrong. In historical paleoclimate it is possible for both temperature increases to start and CO2 emissions to also be both a cause and consequence of temperature rise, because multiple processes are active at once.

co2 and temperature in geohistory

Roughly, in the past, orbital changes can induce changes in ocean circulation & warming which will add CO2 to the atmosphere as it comes out of the ocean, which will cause significant further warming.

At present, substantial excess CO2 is going *in* to the ocean, not out, the rest is going into the atmosphere.

And finally, there is the current period which shows a more 'pure' global experiment, where CO2 and greenhouse gases are injected into the atmosphere by themselves, artificially----and temperature rises come AFTER CO2 rises, as expected from everything we know about physics.

I honestly don't believe 'we" are the cause. We may have a very, very small bit to do with it, but records show the Earth has been going through warming and cooling periods, with an increase and decrease in CO2, much longer than modern man has been burning fossil fuels.

Indeed, except this time, humans are doing something strong which has never happened in the geological history of the planet, and at rate unprecedented in geological history.

The Earth is going to do what it always does....what ever it wants and we have very little say in it.

Saying we have very little say in it would be like asserting that there will always be millions of bison roaming over Kansas for all time.


bison skulls

originally posted by: mbkennel
a reply to: DAVID64And finally, there is the current period which shows a more 'pure' global experiment, where CO2 and greenhouse gases are injected into the atmosphere by themselves, artificially----and temperature rises come AFTER CO2 rises, as expected from everything we know about physics.

I understand I'm a denier for pointing this out, but...


The red line above is CO2 and the green line is temperature. Looks like CO2 comes after the temperature, not before.

The CO2 lagging the temperature is probably explained by Henry's law.

a reply to: mbkennel

So where is the evidence of this in earlier melts from prior deglaciations?

Is it the scale that is making a new phenomenon? I would still expect melting ancient permafrost to act in a similar way.

Im neither a denier of AGW, or a proponent. Im just someone who is curious.

So this article made me wonder where we were at, and the status of the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt.

I was very surprised to find that we are breaking record temperatures all over the world in 2015.




Article here

originally posted by: nOraKat
So this article made me wonder where we were at, and the status of the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt.

I was very surprised to find that we are breaking record temperatures all over the world in 2015.

Article here

We keep breaking records........every year since 2012, I think.

a reply to: nOraKat

i would like to see the data from Feb 2015 till now to make a comparison

Best Video on what is Permafrost:


A while ago I read & watched some videos about this happening near Fort McPherson, Yukon, Canada.

norj.ca...






Doom:



I also think that this naturally occurs is in cycles (we may or may not help the cycle along)???

Another informative video

a reply to: SeekingDepth

Thank you for that.

originally posted by: lostbook

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: swanne

I don't think the Earth is "threatened" by interglacial periods... Sure they suck, but it'll take more than that to "threaten" the entire biosphere.

You mean like pumping man made toxins into the biosphere?

Yes, and pumping toxins into the oceans such as fertilizer(s), corexit, nuclear waste from Fukushima, etc...
Some people say that humans aren't doing much to hurt the Earth but we really are.

All the natural toxic stuff that was sequestered under the earth is being dug up and utilized, ever more since the price of metas is ever rising. We can expect the runoff from mining alone to make ever bigger pits, ever bigger tailings piles, and more heavy metals eroding from depleted and abandoned mines making their way to the oceans and water sheds to begin entering the chain of life, winding up in us.

a reply to: SeekingDepth

thats what im thinking.

which makes me wonder: if there is so much doom being shared over the "megaslumps", what is predicating the doom? Has this happened before? When? Where?

The Carolina Bays....they look like old megaslumps. Is that what happened there as the ice receded, or is that too far south?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

BFT,
Here is what I found on the Carolina Bays origin???
Still not a definite answer I really liked the 1st video below. It explained how the Carolina Bays are not like the areas in Alaska & Russia thaw karst terrain. I really liked the theory about it being caused by gigantic chunks of ice of a glacier that was hit by some extraterrestrial object and then landed back on the ground when they came down in North Carolina & Nebraska. Seemed to have a lot of support for this possible cause.

cintos.org...

dnr.sc.gov...

www.srel.uga.edu...