In near the river Markha Arctic In Siberia, the earth is moving in a way that scientists do not fully understand.
Earlier this week, NASA researchers posted on the agency a series of satellite images of the strangely wrinkled landscape. Earth Observatory website. Photos taken with the Landset 8 satellite over the years show the land on both sides of the Marcha River floating with alternating dark and light stripes. Surprising effect is seen in all four of you, but it is most pronounced in winter, when white snow makes the contrasting pattern more stark.
Why is this particular section of Siberia so intense? Scientists are not entirely sure, and some experts have offered contradictory revelations from NASA.
Related: 8 Biggest Secrets on Earth
A possible explanation is written in the icy plain. According to NASA, this area of the Central Siberian Plate per spends about 90% of the year covered in permafrost, although it occasionally melts for short intervals. Soil patches that constantly freeze, re-melt, and freeze are known to take strange circular or stripe designs known as patterned soils, scientists said in a study published in the journal January in January 2003. Science. The effect occurs when the soil and rocks sort naturally during the stationary cycle.
However, other examples of patterned soils – such as Stone circles Svalbard, Norway – Relatively smaller than the stripes found in Siberia.
Another possible explanation is erosion. U.S. Thomas Crawford, a geologist with the Geological Survey, told NASA that stripes are known as sedimentary rocks such as surface cake geology.
These patterns come when snowmelt or rain slopes downhill, flushing alluvial and alluvial rock fragments into piles. This process can expose the slab of silt that is the cut of a single layer of cake, Crawford said, with darker stripes representing steeper areas and lighter stripes that represent cheerful areas.
As shown in the picture above, this type of alluvial layering would be more brittle in winter when white snow falls, making it look lighter. Fert added that the pattern is thrown away as it approaches the river, where more debris accumulates in the silt after millions of years of erosion.
According to NASA this explanation seems to fit well. But unless the area is studied closely, it will be one of the most exciting Siberian curiosities.
Published on Original Living Science.
