This chapter shows how a distinctive logic of conservation developed over time that focused on the need to preserve traces of a mystery. The possible future utility of the land for researchers wanting to better grasp cosmic connections and catastrophes was at the forefront of this endeavor, distinguishing it from the preservation of wilderness areas and historical artifacts. The chapter follows the campaigns that began in the 1960s to create a nature reserve around the site of the Tunguska blast and examines the variegated thinking about environmentalism among participants in the expeditions. The analysis also demonstrates how the success of nature protection fundamentally altered the longstanding research at the place in unexpected ways.

Continuing chronologically, this chapter picks up the story of the expeditions of Leonid Kulik in 1929 and follows Tunguska research through World War II. A desire to figure out the source of the destroyed forest fostered a set of distinct ecological interactions at the blast site. Workers and scientists began draining waterlogged holes in the ground in search of meteorite fragments, collecting rock samples, and planning an aerial survey of the location. At this stage scouring and manipulating the environment to find a space rock took precedence. Thwarted by political intrigues, environmental obstacles, and the lack of large remains, the mission to find a meteorite proved unsuccessful. While a pattern had now been established in terms of how to engage materially with the Tunguska site, the mystery of what had happened there only deepened.

The introduction opens by asking the reader to imagine encountering the mysterious environment where the Tunguska explosion had occurred. It describes the Tunguska event in broad terms and explains why it remains an unsolved mystery. After reflecting on the potent role of meteorites in world history and the status of mystery as both a property of the natural world and a cultural imposition, the introduction foregrounds the main argument of the book. The site of the Tunguska blast has been a landscape of mystery, where distinctive interactions with the natural world, alternative forms of knowledge, and concerns about catastrophe have dominated environmental relations.