An emergency science expedition has been sent to a remote region of Siberia, where a giant pit with a width of 80 meters, or just over 262 feet, has opened up about 19 miles from a strategic oil and gas region.

The team of researchers was scheduled to arrive today at the seemingly bottomless crater located in one of Russia's northernmost areas, at a latitude close to that of Greenland, according to a report by RT.

Evidence observed in video footage captured by the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, or, Russian Gazette, suggests some type of thermal event may have at least partially contributed to the hole's formation.

It's believed the crater formed two years ago, though it wasn't until the footage of the mysterious, unexplained pit was picked up and circulated by the media that members of the scientific community realized they still had an opportunity to study the phenomenon in depth (pun intended).

The seriousness of the discovery was underscored by the fact Russia's Emergencies Ministry was included in the expedition party, along with the Russian Academy of Sciences, which plans to sample the soil, air and water from the area.

Yet, "Occurrences like this are nothing new in Yamal," a spokesman for the governor's office told Interfax-Ural. "This happened last year, as well as two years age ... earth and ice behave unpredictably. An underwater river might have moved the soil ... So, there's no emergency to speak of here."

The Yamal peninsula, where the hole is situated, is an area approximately 700 kilometers, or 435 miles, and covered with permafrost that's yielded the fossil remains of numerous wooly mammoths.

The region is relatively close to Russia's Bovanenkovo gas field, which itself is within the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug region.

When asked about the possibility the crater was left by a meteorite impact, a spokesman for the Yamal branch of the Emergencies Ministry assuredly announced, "it's not a meteorite." But, he added, "No details yet."

While some of the more outlandish theories about the hole's creation --  including an idea it was formed by an alien craft from space -- have have already been discounted, the suggestion global warming may have caused underground salt and gas deposits to mix then explode is picking up steam, as it were.

The ignition idea is based on the fact that ice and sand helped gas accumulate over time and that sometime around the last Ice Age, which occurred about 10,000 years ago, the area covered with sea water, according to data from the Sub-Arctic Scientific Research Center's Anna Kurchatova.

Finally, when the area's permafrost begins to melt due to global warming, as researchers believe it is, large deposits of natural gas are released, likely resulting in an effect similar to popping open a soda bottle.