![]() The ignominious role of firestarter likely goes to humanity (of course). The earthen depression shields the fires from strong winds, which has allowed them to burn uninterrupted for generations.īut nature isn’t the sole pyromaniac here. Darvaza Crater’s gas supply sits just 500 metres or so below ground, an easily accessible source of essentially unending fuel. This voluminous supply of flammable methane has sparked long-lived fires throughout this part of Central Asia, from Uzbekistan to Azerbaijan. And over time, that vast methane reservoir leaks, and “it just bleeds up” to the surface. The region overlies the colossal Amu-Darya Basin, a giant geologic bowl that “has lots and lots of oil and gas fields” dating back to the Jurassic, said Mark Tingay, a petroleum geomechanics expert at the University of Adelaide. The landscape is home to two other bubbling, gassy craters, one full of water, the other a muddy mess filled with weak flames. But to understand its origin story - and how to quench its unending flames - you need to pan out a bit wider. “When I was digging and gathering these soil samples, fire would come up through the hole that I was digging, because I would open up new paths for the methane,” Kourounis said. It turns out the crater floor was indeed full of confounding critters, an astounding find considering how dynamic and precarious the environment was. He spent no more than 17 minutes down there, gathering soil samples as he went so scientists could check to see whether this Hadean pit was home to any extremely hardy microorganisms. (On record, anyways.) Attached to a complex pulley system, he carefully made his way down to the crater floor courtesy of his Kevlar-imbued fireproof harness and a heat-deflecting suit, the sort occasionally donned by volcanologists. “You expect to see the devil waving back at you,” he said.īack in 2013, Kourounis enjoyed the spectacle so much that he climbed into the crater itself, becoming the first and, to date, only person to have done so. If you peer over the rim, the heat roars into your face as if you’re standing in front of a blast furnace. ![]() ![]() The “of hell” part of the locale’s name is “100% understandable,” George Kourounis, an explorer and documentarian, said. It’s certainly a spectacular sight, particularly at night: Under a canopy of stars, the unyielding pyre within Darvaza (which means “gateway” or “doorway”) flickers and hisses as the darkness above. In recent years, the crater has become something of a tourist attraction. Officials, he said, had been ordered to “find a solution to extinguish the fire.”īut… how exactly does one extinguish a seemingly eternal fire? And, frankly, why the hell would anyone even try to do battle with this demonic geologic force? “We are losing valuable natural resources for which we could get significant profits and use them for improving the well-being of our people,” Berdymukhamedov noted. He also implied that the natural gas going up in flames could be tapped and used as fuel. For some strange reason, as the new year dawned, Turkmenistan’s authoritarian President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov decided he’d had enough of Darvaza’s incandescence.ĭuring televised remarks made earlier this month, he said that the crater - one far from any permanent human population - was a health and safety hazard and an environmental risk. Although its dimensions - 70 metres across and 30 metres deep - aren’t that impressive, the perpetual conflagration within certain is: Methane-fuelled fires have been burning down there for perhaps half a century, like the world’s most overzealous barbecue pit. Within the Central Asian nation’s expansive Karakum Desert, somewhere just north of its centre, lies Darvaza Crater, more commonly known as the Gateway to Hell. OK, who put “Turkmenistan is going to attempt to extinguish the eternal fires of the Gateway of Hell” on their 2022 bingo card? Anyone? No? Right then.
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