I remember reading an article that said a ship sailing over such an area could suddenly lose bouyancy and sink - they did experiments in a wave tank with models.
Methinks those vast underground resevoirs of methane are what keeps producing petroleum, (oil is not "fossile-fuel").
Oil typically contains biomarkers - porphyrins, isoprenoids, pristane, phytane, cholestane, terpines, and clorins - which are related to biochemicals such as chlorophyll and hemoglobin.
The chemical fingerprint of oil assumed to have been formed from, for example, algae is different from that of oil formed from plankton. Thus geochemists can (and routinely do) use biomarkers to trace oil samples to specific source rocks.
Oil and methane are two different things. FReepers do tend to confuse them: I don't know why. I remember reading a post from a FReeper who assumed that because the moon Titan has a sea of methane therefore it also has oil, and therefore oil must be abiotic in origin. Not true!
Hope this was helpful.
Just the opposite. When crude oil is exposed to heat and pressure, it continues to break down into smaller molecules including down to methane. The oldest, thermally mature oil fields have a higher percentage of natural gas.
In refineries, we do the same thing. We use heat and pressure to breakdown heavier petroleum molecules into smaller, lighter ones.
Gov’t terrifies me. Methane fountains not so much :-)
I saw a show about the Bermuda Triangle. These types of methane plumes were one of the possible explanations for the loss of so many ships in that area of the Atlantic.
The lack of bouyancy was given as the reason for the sinking of so many ships.