Darvaza gas crater

Just found out about this place. Utterly fascinating.

Im curious any geologists or people intested in earth sciences able to give a guess as to how long it will burn for?

originally posted by: Ghostsinthefog
Just found out about this place. Utterly fascinating.

Im curious any geologists or people intested in earth sciences able to give a guess as to how long it will burn for?

They were drilling an oil well, hit a gas pocket and the ground collapsed beneath them. There could be millions of cubic metres of gas there, and from the picture, there is a burn-off of a hundred cubic metres/hour, it could burn for decades. It's been burning since the 1980's.

a reply to: Ghostsinthefog

What is fascinating about it?

originally posted by: Ghostsinthefog
Just found out about this place. Utterly fascinating.

Im curious any geologists or people intested in earth sciences able to give a guess as to how long it will burn for?

Usually when you drill for oil theres some natural gas too, from what I understand, Im not a chemist , but if the oil is there and the conditions are right, and it keeps producing that gas.

I guess it could burn forever?

When I read the title, I thought it was about by backside.

My wife spells "Darvaza" with a silent J.

My bad...

Just for the info:

Dravaza = Darvazeh in Persian (Farsi) means “ the Gate” created to extract oil and natural gas by the Russian but somehow imploded and created this mess.

Its better keep burning this way because if not it will release huge amount of methane gas in atmosphere. Quite nice site to visit thou.

Here is some nice drone footage for those who are curious:


Some more info:


Cool place.

I read about some of these underground fires over the years, like the one in Pennsylvania somewhere I think from a coal mine.

You would think that they could incorporate some kind of boiler system to run an electric plant in these locations. If they go out they could just set up a regular power plant with all the equipment. These things are expected to burn for a long time.

a reply to: Ghostsinthefog

An interesting story. Here is another underground fire burning since the 60's in Pennsylvania.

The Centralia mine fire is a coal seam fire that has been burning underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since at least May 27, 1962. The fire is suspected to be from deliberate burning of trash in a former strip mine, igniting a coal seam.

m.huffpost.com...

Double post

There are loads of underground fires that have been going on for centuries. They're called VOLCANOs. So some idiots kicked off an underground fuel source and cos it's big they can't "stop" it.

So why not put a 300' lid on it and use the gas?

It could be done.

originally posted by: howtonhawky
So why not put a 300' lid on it and use the gas?

It could be done.

OR....

The worlds largest outdoor bar-b-q...

Guy Fieri must be drooling...

Why cant it burn out? The gas supply has to come to an end