The gas shows in the permafrost zone represent a hazard for exploration, form the surface features, and are improperly estimated in the global methane budget. They contain methane of either surficial or deep-Earth origin accumulated earlier in the form of gas or gas hydrates in lithological traps in permafrost. From these traps, it rises through conduits, which have tectonic origin or are associated with permafrost degradation. We report methane fluxes from 20-m to 30-m deep boreholes, which are the artificial conduits for gas from permafrost in Siberia. The dynamics of degassing the traps was studied using static chambers, and compared to the concentration of methane in permafrost as analyzed by the headspace method and gas chromatography. More than 53 g of CH4 could be released to the atmosphere at rates exceeding 9 g of CH4 m−2 s−1 from a trap in epigenetic permafrost disconnected from traditional geological sources over a period from a few hours to several days. The amount of methane released from a borehole exceeded the amount of the gas that was enclosed in large volumes of permafrost within a diameter up to 5 meters around the borehole. Such gas shows could be by mistake assumed as permanent gas seeps, which leads to the overestimation of the role of permafrost in global warming.

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Thanks to a comprehensive approach to studying of natural cracking (use of the modern remote and geochemical researches) in the southern regions of Western Siberia (South of Tyumen region), large regional tectonic blocks and depression zones were identified from space and geological-geophysical data. The assessment of their prospects for the detection of hydrocarbon deposits, taking into account the geodynamic and fluidodynamic approaches.

In the South of Western Siberia oil-perspectivity Jurassic deposits are characterized by multi – and small-scale. The interpretation of earth remote sensing materials in the visible, near and far infrared ranges allowed to evaluate the oil potential of numerous domes and depressions on the basis of combining geodynamically stressed zones and calculating the physical characteristics of the earth's surface (albedo, radiation coefficient, thermal inertia, convective heat flow, daily evaporation of moisture, DEM, weather conditions, etc.), including the procedure of reference classification, where the standards are the nearest oil and gas condensate fields. The forecast boundary of “oil and gas condensate” lands of the South of Western Siberia is displaced to the latitude of u.v. Lebyazhye of the Eastern part of the Kurgan region.

Thanks to the complex approach to the study of natural cracking (use of modern remote and geochemical research) in the southern regions of Western Siberia (south of theTyumen region), large regional tectonic blocks and depression zones have been identified by space and geological-geophysical data. Their potential for detecting hydrocarbon deposits was evaluated, taking into account the geodynamic and fluid dynamic approaches.