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The Door To Hell (Darvaza Gas Crater; Turkmenistan)

GNC

GNC

King-Sized Canary
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Meanwhile, in Darvaza, Turkmenistan:
Wiki page

This one's a relative baby, from 1971. Started deliberately by oil prospectors, though the results and massive pollution were accidental. What a piece of work is Man!
 
Apparently you can take a camping trip there. No smoking!
 
Here is the National Geographic online article (with video) describing the Darvaza Gas Crater and George Kourounis' 2013 descent into the crater. Amazingly, he discovered extremophile microbes living within the crater.
Entering the 'Door to Hell'

The Door to Hell is a continually burning crater located in remote Turkmenistan. Adventurer George Kourounis describes being the first person to enter the Door to Hell and what he found when he reached the bottom. ...
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https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/entering-door-hell/#:~:text=Kourounis was the first individual,has been burning for decades.&text=The resulting gas-fed flames continue burning to this day.
 
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In this new AccuWeather online article Kourounis reflects on the 2013 expedition and what he learned about the crater.
'Gates of Hell' crater has burned in remote desert for 50 years

Kourounis is the only person known to have descended into the center of the crater; he led an expedition for National Geographic to take soil samples at the bottom in 2013. ...

"The idea was to look to find out if there was any kind of bacteria that were living in this really extreme environment," he said. "There are planets outside of our solar system that have hot, methane-rich environments. So, if we could find even microscopic bacteria living in this crater, it could give us clues as to where we might want to look for life on other planets." ...

Some of the lifeforms discovered were metabolizing the methane gas present in the crater, relying on a process known as chemosynthesis rather than photosynthesis, so they received their energy from the methane gas rather than the sun. ...

He and others on the expedition team quickly learned that the crater functions like a convection oven, meaning colder air sinks to the bottom in the center and heats up at the bottom from the fire, allowing the hotter air to then rise along the sides. Standing even on the edge at the top felt like being dry roasted, Kourounis said.

The jets of fire sounds like the roar of an airplane engine, rather than a crackling campfire.

The hottest temperature Kourounis was able to measure while in the crater was over 700 degrees Fahrenheit. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weat...s-burned-in-remote-desert-for-50-years/778971
 
I wonder if Darvaza was the inspiration for this leaflet I saw somewhere on the Web ?

arm2.jpg
 
I didn't realise there was a thread on drilling into hell -so no fiery inferno in the centre of the earth then.
 
Bad Bungle said:
I didn't realise there was a thread on drilling into hell -so no fiery inferno in the centre of the earth then.
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I believe there is an inferno at the centre of the Earth, it's just not Hell.
 
After about a half-century of burning, the Gates of Hell / Door to Hell crater is in trouble. The president of Turkmenistan is now calling for the fire to be extinguished.
Turkmenistan’s leader wants ‘Gates of Hell’ fire put out

The president of Turkmenistan is calling for an end to one of the country’s most notable but infernal sights — the blazing natural gas crater widely referred to as the “Gates of Hell.”

The desert crater located about 260 kilometers (160 miles) north of the capital, Ashgabat, has burned for decades and is a popular sight for the small number of tourists who come to Turkmenistan, a country which is difficult to enter.

The Turkmen news site Turkmenportal said a 1971 gas-drilling collapse formed the crater ... To prevent the spread of gas, geologists set a fire, expecting the gas to burn off in a few weeks.

The spectacular if unwelcome fire that has burned ever since is so renowned that state TV showed President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov speeding around it in an off-road truck in 2019.

But Berdymukhamedov has ordered his government to look for ways to put the fire out because it is causing ecological damage and affecting the health of people living in the area, state newspaper Neitralny Turkmenistan reported Saturday.
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SOURCE: https://apnews.com/article/business...tan-ashgabat-5aa743375a84ecd181a8f3886e322047
 
The first man to descend into the Gateway to Hell

In 2013, Canadian explorer George Kouronis became the first man to descend into Turkmenistan's "Gateway to Hell", a fire that has been burning for decades in a huge desert gas crater.

He spoke to the BBC about his experience taking soil samples from its depths, hunting for bacteria and other microbes living in the extreme conditions.
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He spent 17 minutes at the bottom & did find some organisms not in the DNA database thriving down there. Although the generally accepted date is 1971, rumour the collapse happened in the 60s but not lit until 80s.

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