The Vaskiny Dachi research center on the Yamal Peninsula will receive new equipment for monitoring permafrost in 2018, Artyom Khomutov, leading research associate at the Institute of Earth's Cryosphere of the Tyumen Research Center at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian branch, told TASS.

"The summer of 2017 was not as unusually warm as in 2016, but the active development of the processes changing the appearance of tundra landscapes did not slow down. Cavities on slopes continued expanding in the center of the Yamal Peninsula because of the melting of widely spread underground ice deposits. Owing to the support of the Russian Arctic Exploration Center and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area's Department of Science and Innovations, the Vaskiny Dachi research center received fully equipped living containers for the temporary residence of researchers. In the spring of 2018, more container housing and equipment will be sent to the station for researchers studying snow cover," TASS reported quoting Khomutov.

He said studies conducted in the spring of 2017 revealed increased content of chlorine in lake water.

"This requires additional and more detailed research and new samples. In addition, we continue studying gas emission craters. Further work on this project financed by the Russian Research Fund is aimed at creating a theoretical model of crater formation and assessing its likelihood in central Yamal in the future," Khomutov explained.

Several craters have been found near the Bovanenkovskoye deposit on the Yamal Peninsula since 2014. They were all flooded. Such craters are created by underground gas emission. Last summer researchers found another two craters — one some 34 km away from the village of Seyakha and the other about 20 km from the village of Yaruta.