Bely Island
© Vladimir Vaskin

Scientists suggest installing a seismic station on Bely Island in the Kara Sea

Scientists suggest increasing the number of seismic stations in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area (YNAA) to help forecast the formation of gas emission craters and other dangers. This was announced by Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Vasily Bogoyavlensky who is also Deputy Director for Science at the Institute for Oil and Gas Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences.

"The first three stations were supplied three months ago thanks to the support  of the YNAA authorities and Governor Dmitry Kobylkin personally. The RAS Geophysical Service is generalizing the data. We have few seismic stations in the Arctic and therefore cannot monitor what is happening," he said.

According to Bogoyavlensky, there is a need for five or six additional stations. "Their priority locations are certainly Bely Island in the Urengoi area and Salekhard. With their help, we will be able to accurately localize events that are an emission or explosion because, in effect, these are small earthquakes. The stations that we had earlier could not identify them," he said.

Since 2014, several craters formed by underground gas emissions have been found in the area.