Scientists seek source of giant methane mass over Southwest

Fox News ^ | Published April 10, 2015 | AP

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

DENVER – Scientists are working to pinpoint the source of a giant mass of methane hanging over the southwestern U.S., which a study found to be the country's largest concentration of the greenhouse gas.

The report that revealed the methane hot spot over the Four Corners region — where Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona meet — was released last year.

[SkyDancer]

Taco Bell

[Ben Mugged]

Hillary had beans again.

[TigersEye]

They do grow a lot of Anasazi beans in that region.
Ancient but deadly!

[ansel12]

You would think that modern technology could pinpoint which house it is coming from, and do something about it.

[tumblindice]

[alloysteel]

Methane being rather lighter that the major constituents of the atmosphere, diatomic oxygen and diatomic nitrogen, it would float much higher in the atmosphere and disperse rather quickly. Unless it were being replenished from a steady source, it is unlikely such a concentration would stay in only one location for more that the length of time for a gust of high-level wind to come along and disperse it.

Now a high-ozone concentration, which is a triatomic form of oxygen, is relatively dense, as gas goes, and the only way it could continue to remain in one place is if it were being continually generated in its location - UV rays acting on diatomic oxygen, converting O2 to O3. A gas as heavy as ozone would sink quickly in earth’s atmosphere, and remain in close proximity to the ground, until its extreme reactivity would change the free ozone back to free oxygen and an oxide of something else.

[FES0844]

Weed

[ez]

Fukushima.

[BlackAdderess]

Same area as the worst of the dust bowl.

[Oatka]

Discovered by these guys.

And the culprits are:

Great movie, BTW.

[Sasparilla]

Its the overabundance of people, cars, trucks, airports, corporations, electric generation fired by coal, and manufacturers smokestacks in the Four Corners that is causing this.

[Talisker]

It was a great movie. I’m bummed they didn’t continue the series - they ended it like they wanted to.

[batterycommander]

cow poop

[smokingfrog]

Simple answer. Coal bed methane.

[Oatka]

Me too. Years back there was an article talking about that possibility but nothing ever came of it.

Loved all the subtle - and not so subtle - elbows in the ribs:
“Call ‘em up on the Marconi”, “No one cumz in here. It is sekrit” - and Lithgow doing the Mussolini routine.

[BlackAdderess]

Yeah, but you don’t see that in other places with industry and large numbers of people, I’ll bet its some sort of natural phenomena, though it looks almost like a huge plume of gas.

[SandRat]

Michael Moore, no doubt...and Roseanne O'Donnell Tooting together.

[jy8z]

It’s wookie based according to my tests.

[BenLurkin]

Michael Moore and Roseanne O'Donnell Tooting together....

Don't nobody light a match...

[SandRat]

That would be one way to get rid of them Both at once.