- 19 hours ago
A deep dive into two of the most puzzling craters on Earth: one hidden under Antarctica’s ice that may be older than the continents themselves, and another tucked away in the remote Siberian wilderness. From gravity anomalies to unexplained geological formations, these mysteries challenge everything we think we know about our planet’s past. Are they massive ancient impacts, volcanic oddities, or something entirely different? Let’s explore the theories, the science, and the questions that still remain unanswered. Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00A long, long time ago, a huge meteorite smashed into the Earth with a horrible destructive
00:06power.
00:07It was several times bigger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
00:13Luckily, there were no lives it could have taken, or else it would have been a real catastrophe.
00:19Now, scientists think it did leave behind a huge footprint, the massive Antarctica impact
00:25crater that is bigger than the entire state of New York.
00:29The location also has a gravitational Wilkes Land anomaly going on.
00:34At first, scientists noticed something weird here when they measured Earth's gravity in
00:39that region.
00:40A strange gravity hole, or a negative gravity anomaly.
00:45Later with better technology, they found something even weirder.
00:49There was a positive gravity anomaly inside that gravity hole, a spot with stronger gravity.
00:57This kind of structure, called a mascon, short for mass concentration, often shows up in
01:02places where giant space rocks or meteorites have slammed into the planet.
01:08When a meteor hits hard enough, it punches through the Earth's crust and shakes the mantle below.
01:13It can spring back up and leave behind a super-dense plug of material, which causes stronger gravity
01:20right in the center of the crater.
01:21It's something like a frosty donut, with ice filling the gap and a dense center rising up from underneath.
01:28In 2018, scientists used advanced scanning techniques to study and map the Wilkes Land meteorite impact in more detail than ever before.
01:38They saw that it wasn't a perfect circle, but more of a U-shape, and the northern part looked like something had broken it apart.
01:46It possibly happened when Australia split away from Antarctica about 35 million years ago.
01:52Some scientists even think you can still see parts of the crater in southern Australia today.
01:58This clue also supports the idea that the giant crater under Antarctica formed before the continents broke apart.
02:07There have been different ideas about what created this strange formation.
02:12Some said it might be a volcano, or an eroded valley, or even a sedimentary basin that is a place where sediments build up over millions of years.
02:22But many scientists now believe the most likely explanation is a massive meteor impact.
02:28It was possibly one of the biggest to ever hit Earth.
02:32A 2015 study even estimated the age of the crater as its size matches the kind of space rocks that smashed into Earth between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago.
02:44The Wilkes Land meteorite impact was so powerful because the meteor that caused it could have been up to 30 miles wide.
02:52That's four to five times wider than the Chicxulub meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
02:59Even that meteor was enough to cause massive destruction with wildfires, acid rain, tsunamis, and a climate crash that wiped out about 75% of all existing life.
03:11So, it was lucky in a way that the meteorite that gave us the giant crater under Antarctica visited at a time when there were only microbes and no plants or animals on Earth.
03:23It didn't cause mass extinction or leave behind charcoal from ancient fires, but it may have changed the entire planet.
03:31Still, scientists haven't put the Wilkes Land anomaly mystery in the solved files.
03:37Because the crater is buried deep under Antarctica's thick ice sheet, it's hard to study up close.
03:43Scientists say we can't rule out the other ideas just yet, but if the meteor theory is right, then the Wilkes Land crater could be the largest known impact crater on Earth.
03:54So far, this title belongs to another contestant, the Vredefort Crater in South Africa.
04:02Right now, the crater is around 99 miles wide, which is huge.
04:07But it's not as wide as the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico, which is about 112 miles wide.
04:14But the Vredefort Crater used to be way bigger, around 155 to 174 miles wide, before time and erosion wore it down.
04:25That means, even though the Chicxulub Impact was striking, the Vredefort Impact was likely even more powerful, the biggest one we know of that hit Earth.
04:35According to the latest study, that asteroid was 12.4 to 15.5 miles wide and might have hit Earth at a speed of 45,000 to 56,000 miles per hour.
04:48It's important for science, because knowing the real size of this impact helps us build better models to understand Earth's geology and how giant impacts shape planets even beyond Earth.
05:01Measuring ancient craters is really tricky.
05:07Over 2 billion years, erosion wears away the edges, and newer rocks form over the crater.
05:13That's what happened to Vredefort.
05:15Now, only small bits of the original crater rim are visible, and the rest is hidden under newer rock.
05:21To figure out its true size, scientists studied minerals like quartz and zircon found around the crater.
05:29These minerals still have fractures and shock patterns that show us how powerful the blast was.
05:36Wilkes Land Anomaly isn't the only case on our planet where gravity is acting weirdly.
05:42For over 40 years, scientists were trying to solve a strange mystery in Canada.
05:46Parts of the country, especially around Hudson Bay, seem to have less gravity than the rest of the world.
05:54That means if you stepped on a scale there, you'd weigh just a tiny bit less than usual.
06:00Researchers first discovered this weird difference in the 1960s when they were mapping Earth's gravity.
06:07Gravity is linked to mass.
06:09The more mass there is, the stronger the gravity.
06:12And since Earth isn't shaped perfectly like a ball, but is slightly squashed at the poles and bulges at the equator,
06:19it makes sense that its mass isn't spread out evenly.
06:23So, the first out of the two main theories to explain the Hudson Bay mystery has to do with magma.
06:30Yes, that super-hot, gooey rock deep under our planet's surface.
06:35Magma constantly churns, like boiling soup, in a process called convection.
06:40As this magma moves, it can drag parts of Earth's crust down with it.
06:46That makes the area lighter, which lowers the gravity.
06:50The second area has to do with the Laurentide Ice Sheet,
06:54a massive glacier that covered much of Canada during the last ice age.
06:58This ice was up to 2.3 miles thick in some parts of Hudson's Bay.
07:03That's like stacking 10 Empire State Buildings on top of each other.
07:06Because it was so heavy, the ice pressed the land down like a thumb on a sponge.
07:13Even though the ice melted away about 10,000 years ago,
07:17the land underneath is still slowly bouncing back,
07:21kind of like a memory foam mattress after you get up.
07:23This slow rise is called glacial rebound, and it's happening at less than half an inch per year.
07:31Until the land fully bounces back, which could take 5,000 more years,
07:36it will continue to have less mass.
07:38And that means less gravity.
07:40Both of these theories are right.
07:44To figure this out, scientists used super-advanced satellites,
07:48which floated around 300 miles above Earth for several years.
07:52These satellites flew in pairs and detected how far apart they were pulled
07:57as they passed over areas like Hudson Bay,
08:00to measure tiny changes in gravity.
08:03When the front satellite passed over a low-gravity area,
08:06it drifted just slightly, and that change was recorded.
08:10Thanks to this research, scientists created detailed maps
08:14showing what Hudson Bay looked like during the last Ice Age.
08:18They discovered two huge bulges on the west and east sides,
08:22where the ice was thickest.
08:24And those spots have the weakest gravity today.
08:27The effects of this are still visible,
08:29and while sea levels are rising in most parts of the world,
08:32the land around Hudson Bay is rising so fast
08:35that sea levels there are actually dropping.
08:38Solving mysteries like this or the Antarctica impact crater anomaly
08:43gives scientists amazing insights into the past of our planet.
08:47And by understanding how past changes in temperature and geology affected Earth,
08:53scientists can predict how today's human activity can impact our future.
08:57It was the summer of 1949.
09:04Young geologist Vadim Kolpakov was on a mission to northern Russia in the Irkutsk region.
09:10His job was to draw a geological map of the area.
09:13While on duty, he came across something so mysterious and remarkable,
09:17it continued to puzzle experts decades later.
09:21Ooh, what could it be?
09:22It was the middle of August.
09:26Kolpakov, though tired from all the walking, reached the area he needed to map.
09:30There, he met the local Yakut people,
09:33who warned him about a bad place hidden in the woods.
09:37Though now it's more famous as the Potomanski crater,
09:40locals had dubbed it Fire Eagle Nest,
09:43probably because it looks like a giant bird nest sitting on a hill.
09:46And I mean giant.
09:48It rises 130 feet in the air, half as tall as a giant sequoia.
09:53The cone-like structure's base has a diameter of 320 feet,
09:57almost as wide as the Seattle Space Needle is tall.
10:01But what was hiding inside would be the most surprising and baffling discovery.
10:07Well, if you could get close enough to uncover its secrets.
10:10According to the Yakut people, even wild animals are scared to go near it.
10:14Locals had all sorts of theories about this earthly mystery.
10:19They said that people fell ill around it,
10:22and some of them even went missing, never to be found.
10:25When the young geologist heard about the possible dangers,
10:29he wasn't scared at all.
10:30He became even more curious about what's going on in that crater.
10:34So he decided to approach it, get a closer look, and find out.
10:38He thought that, as an expert, he might be able to give a simple explanation.
10:43If only it were that easy.
10:46He began walking towards it slowly, while also observing the nature around it.
10:52He looked at some of the half-broken trees, the soil, and the plants.
10:57At first, he thought it might be an archaeological artifact.
11:00But the ancient locals didn't have the engineering technology
11:04the Egyptians or Romans had back then to build something so big.
11:08Could it be the work of another ancient civilization, though?
11:11From far away, it looked like a giant bird nest, indeed.
11:17The closer he got, the bigger it became.
11:20That was when he realized it couldn't have been built by humans.
11:23There was nothing that resembled any ancient architecture he could connect it to.
11:28Maybe it was a volcano.
11:31A plausible theory, but there haven't been any around that location for millions of years.
11:35Plus, the crater appeared to be fresh.
11:39It was also deserted.
11:41Trees didn't grow on the slopes of this natural structure,
11:44and the winds didn't carry enough soil to make plant growth possible.
11:48Are the Yakut people correct?
11:50Do animals avoid it too?
11:52He climbed all the way to the top and discovered something unbelievable.
11:56It was so hot that he felt the sweat running down his forehead.
12:01It was as if he was close to a fire source.
12:04When he looked down, he was met with a perfectly circular mound in the middle.
12:10Another mystery, he thought to himself.
12:13The round hump in the center of the crater was around 40 feet tall,
12:17the height of your standard telephone pole.
12:20Such things don't appear in volcanoes, even in extinct ones.
12:23And there aren't any around here that link to this particular mound.
12:28Without being able to solve the strange appearance of the bad place,
12:33Kolpakov went back home and told everyone about his discovery.
12:37What was once a local anomaly would soon become a worldwide mystery.
12:44After a while, the crater was named the most mysterious place in Russia for many reasons.
12:50Trees didn't grow on or around the structure.
12:52And they also found that radiation levels were very high.
12:56But I'm getting ahead of myself, and I sure don't want to do that.
13:01His discovery sparked an interest in the scientific community.
13:04And people started digging and coming up with theories.
13:07A lot of experts agreed that this must have been the work of a meteorite.
13:11They believed that the space rock entered the Earth's atmosphere at incredible speeds,
13:16but had been slowed down quite a bit by the time it struck the surface.
13:19But it still hit hard enough to form the infamous crater.
13:24As the years went on, without a definite answer to what happened,
13:28almost everyone agreed that this must be the case.
13:31But later, other scientists came to add their own alternate theories.
13:35One of them was geologist Alexander Portnoff.
13:40He believed that the crater was the result of a space rock slicing off the famous Tunguska meteoroid,
13:46which exploded over Krasnoyarsk, the third largest city in Siberia, in the summer of 1908.
13:52But get this, the meteorite that should have struck the Earth was never found.
13:57The accepted theory is that it disintegrated a few miles in the air before it made contact.
14:03Those two theories inspired many expeditions to the mysterious site.
14:08Visiting scientists took samples of the soil and surrounding plants.
14:12Would lab tests prove that this thing had cosmic origins?
14:16Hard to say, because their efforts ended up being fruitless.
14:20So, the research continued and only grew as the story began making headlines.
14:24In 2006, Dr. Alexander Dmitriev, from the Irkutsk State Technical University,
14:32found a puzzling magnetic anomaly in the area.
14:35He thought that there could be iron or some other metal a few hundred feet below the surface.
14:41So, another expert joined the project.
14:44It was Dr. Igor Siminov from the Moscow Institute for Problems in Mechanics.
14:48He ran some tests to see if a meteorite impact could create this double-mound structure.
14:53Some time later, he came out with his findings.
14:57The crater was likely formed by a falling, somewhat spherical object made from a dense material that could only exist in space.
15:06When the paper covering this theory came out, some experts did more experiments to see if it was possible.
15:12They found that it wasn't just one object falling from space, but two traveling over 14,000 miles per hour.
15:19When the first meteorite hit the Earth, it exploded and formed the crater.
15:24Then the second object followed, but it was slowed down by the first impact and sunk deep into the ground.
15:31Yet again, there were problems with that theory too.
15:35Many astrophysicists objected, claiming that meteorites can't fly one after the other and hit the planet in the exact same spot.
15:42With so many questions still unanswered, more and more experts came to the Siberian location to take a shot at solving the mystery.
15:52One of them started collecting wood samples to determine the age of the trees in the area and compared them to small samples taken on the slope itself.
16:01In the end, they finally had a breakthrough.
16:03They found that the crater likely appeared about 300 years ago.
16:07When?
16:08Check.
16:09How?
16:10Still a mystery.
16:10They came across another secret while studying the trees.
16:15By counting the rings in a tree's trunk, scientists can find not only how old they are, but also any abnormalities in that time.
16:24With this experiment, they noticed that the vegetation grew way faster than usual in this spot.
16:31After ruling out other growth-boosting factors like better soil content and more sunshine for some period of time,
16:37the only guess they were left with was…
16:40Yes, the experts knew that when exposed to high doses of radiation, trees and plants grow faster.
16:49But the radiation levels on and around the crater were low.
16:53At some point in the last 300 years or so, there must have been radioactive material in the area.
16:59Their way to check was to examine the trees even further for elements that show that.
17:03And bingo!
17:05They found high levels of uranium and strontium in the trunks.
17:10But those elements had decayed in the last 20 years, hence why initial readings on the crater itself weren't too high.
17:17The next step was to finally unveil the mystery of what this thing is.
17:21They turned their attention to the assumption Kolpakkov had made when he first explored the Fire Eagle Nest.
17:29What if this thing is a volcano that, instead of lava, spews out gas?
17:34And do you think that was the answer they had been looking for?
17:37You should know by now that there was a problem with this theory too.
17:41The gases most volcanoes put out aren't dangerously radioactive, so that couldn't explain the radiation in the trees.
17:49That, and it hadn't erupted in recent years to analyze its gas.
17:54Though a gas eruption could explain how the thing rose from the underground.
17:59And a second eruption could be what caused that mound to spring up in the center.
18:04Yet the mystery remains to this day.
18:07Why were the trees radioactive at some point?
18:09Why is there high magnetism in the area?
18:13If a space rock hit the Earth, where did it go?
18:16And if it wasn't a meteorite, then what gave birth to this enigmatic mound jutting out of the isolated Siberian forest?
18:25Expeditions continue to this day in search of answers.
18:29That's it for today.
18:30So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
18:35Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side!
Be the first to comment