Most fires burn through their fuel in a few hours, days or weeks. When underground fossil fuel deposits catch alight, however, the fires can rage for decades.
The Darvaza Gas Crater, also known as the ‘Gates of Hell’, is a 60m-wide (196ft) pit in Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert, which has been ablaze for at least 40 years.
The origins of the crater are disputed. Some claim it opened in the 1970s when a rogue Soviet gas drilling rig accidentally punctured an underground pocket of natural gas; others believe it formed naturally in the 1960s.
Either way, when geologists detected methane leaking from the crater they lit the gas, hoping to avert an environmental disaster. They assumed it would burn out in a few weeks, but the pit is still burning decades later.
The crater sits above a huge oil and gas field that runs through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, meaning it's probably connected to vast underground stores of methane, providing the fire with almost limitless fuel.
In 2013, Canadian explorer George Kourounis embarked on an expedition to study the crater. Wearing a heat-resistant suit, he descended to the bottom of the crater to collect soil samples. He discovered simple organisms that were able to survive in the harsh conditions at the crater’s base.
The Gates of Hell might be the most famous fire, but it isn’t the oldest one still burning. Thick layers of underground coal, known as coal seams, can fuel fires that last for centuries.
One coal-seam fire beneath Mount Wingen in Australia has been burning for over 5,000 years. Until their vast subterranean fuel supply is exhausted, these fires are likely to keep burning indefinitely.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by Dennis McCann, Derby) 'What are the Gates of Hell, and why do they keep burning?'
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