At the time I speculated whether this was a fluke or whether we'd be seeing more of these things in the high north before long. We didn't have to wait long for the answer.
The Siberian Times reports that reindeer herders have come across two more of these craters.
No word yet on whether anything similar is happening in the Canadian north.
MoS, the Disaffected Lib
UPDATE: Here's an update from Scientific American
A NEW UPDATE: Large spikes of methane being released into the atmosphere above Siberia may be tied to the mysterious craters which have appeared in the landscape, according to a US scientist.
Dr Jason Box, a professor in glaciology at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, has highlighted increased levels of methane above the landscape.
The geologist's blog links the craters to climate change, as the melting Siberian permafrost is allowing the greenhouse gas to escape and create the enormous holes.
Using data from a ground-based climate observing station in Tiksi, a small town in the Sakha Republic on the Arctic Ocean coast, Dr Box discovered "high end" levels of methane. The readings were backed up by data from similar stations in Alaska and Canada, according to News.com.au.
The spikes, which Dr Box calls "dragon breaths", may well be connected to the unusual holes that have appeared in the Siberia landscape over the last month.
Three craters have been discovered so far. The first 80m-wide hole was spotted 1,800 miles east of Moscow in a barren permafrost stretch of the Yamal Peninsula, an area that translates as "the end of the world".
