Such is the message from an excellent story in Salon by Kristen Weir, organized around an upcoming panel at the American Geophysical Union on methane hydrates in permafrost and deep ocean sites.
Weir writes:
Methane hydrates aren't unusual, astronomically speaking. They exist on
Mars, inside comets, and on at least a couple of Saturn's frosty moons.
Here on Earth, they form deep below permafrost and under seafloor
sediments, where temperature and pressure conspire to keep the
structures stable. It's not certain how much methane is locked up in
hydrates, but some estimates put the total as high as 10,000 gigatons,
says Gerald Dickens, a professor of earth sciences at Rice University.
To put it in perspective, he says, "the estimates for all of the oil,
Russian polar scientists have strong evidence that the first stages of
melting are underway. They've studied largest shelf sea in the world,
off the coast of Siberia, where the Asian continental shelf stretches
across an underwater area six times the size of Germany, before falling
off gently into the Arctic Ocean. The scientists are presenting their
data from this remote, thinly-investigated region at the annual
conference of the European Geosciences Union this week in Vienna.gas, and coal [on Earth] is about 5,000 gigatons."
Mars, inside comets, and on at least a couple of Saturn's frosty moons.
Here on Earth, they form deep below permafrost and under seafloor
sediments, where temperature and pressure conspire to keep the
structures stable. It's not certain how much methane is locked up in
hydrates, but some estimates put the total as high as 10,000 gigatons,
says Gerald Dickens, a professor of earth sciences at Rice University.
To put it in perspective, he says, "the estimates for all of the oil,
Russian polar scientists have strong evidence that the first stages of
melting are underway. They've studied largest shelf sea in the world,
off the coast of Siberia, where the Asian continental shelf stretches
across an underwater area six times the size of Germany, before falling
off gently into the Arctic Ocean. The scientists are presenting their
data from this remote, thinly-investigated region at the annual
conference of the European Geosciences Union this week in Vienna.gas, and coal [on Earth] is about 5,000 gigatons."
Could they be shaking loose? Another story, more alarming, from Siberia via Der Spiegel suggests so..
Russian polar scientists have strong evidence that the first stages of
melting are underway. They've studied largest shelf sea in the world,
off the coast of Siberia, where the Asian continental shelf stretches
across an underwater area six times the size of Germany, before falling
off gently into the Arctic Ocean. The scientists are presenting their
data from this remote, thinly-investigated region at the annual
conference of the European Geosciences Union this week in Vienna.
melting are underway. They've studied largest shelf sea in the world,
off the coast of Siberia, where the Asian continental shelf stretches
across an underwater area six times the size of Germany, before falling
off gently into the Arctic Ocean. The scientists are presenting their
data from this remote, thinly-investigated region at the annual
conference of the European Geosciences Union this week in Vienna.
That story dated from April, but the scientists Weir talked to on this side of the Atlantic seemed unimpressed…perhaps that methane has been bubbling up since time humanity first began picking up rocks. Will attend AGU meeting and report further…
Kit Stolz 