Fossil Records Show Methane In Seafloor Sediments (Global Warming)

Science Daily ^ | 2-26-2003 | Woods Hole

[blam]

This article caught my attention for reasons other than global warming, etc. Could these high concentrations of gas cause suffication in on-land animals. Could it ignite and cause huge blasts?

[ClearCase_guy]

Isn't there a scientist who claims that petroleum itself is constantly being made by bacteria that lives in the Earth's crust? That petroleum can be found anywhere, if you drill deep enough? That it IS a renewable resource?

Does this methane deposit and release help that theory at all?

[Sacajaweau]

I have a good article on this in an 1850 book of scientific articles.

[Servant of the Nine]

There are huge amounts of methane hydrate on the sea floors. It is unstable. It could explode, but that isn't the problem. They would be local explosions, of a few thousand or million tons. If released into the atmosphere methane will react relatively slowly (days or weeks) with oxygen to form CO2, supposedly causing a greenhouse effect and Global warming.

We will probably find a way to contain and harvest it before too many years, as it contains many times more petrochemicals than all todays known reserves.

Some have theorized that huge methane hydrate bubbles rising under ships could drop them deep into the ocean, and that that is the cause of the Bermuda Triangle mysteries.

SO9

[JmyBryan]

That guy's name is Thomas Gold. I'm not sure how much this substantiates his theory. However there are scientists who see this as a possible next power source. Lots of it, clean burning, non-OPEC etc.

[Lokibob]

I was going to mention the Bermuda Triangle and methane. I can't remember where I read it, but it was within the last couple of years.

I'll look for it this afternoon and post here, if I find it.

[Fitzcarraldo]

National Methane Hydrate Program

[dead]

We will probably find a way to contain and harvest it before too many years, as it contains many times more petrochemicals than all todays known reserves.

The main problem appears to be that it very unstable and evaporates as it’s brought to the surface.

That really doesn’t sound like too formidable a technological obstacle.

[Mike Darancette]

Could it ignite and cause huge blasts?

Clive Cussler wrote a book about a bad guy doing just that, along the East Coast, to trigger Tidal Waved.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[SauronOfMordor]

The main problem appears to be that it very unstable and evaporates as it’s brought to the surface.

No big deal. Methane has long been transported by ship as Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). Harvest it under water under pressure, bring it up in sealed containers, let it revert to gas, cool it to liquid state again, store it on ship until you get to port.

[Junior]

The same creationists who lambast everything scientific when it comes to evolution will use this study to support their views on global warming.

[colorado tanker]

So, to put this in non-technical terms, there is so much seabed methane that the ocean could blow out a fart so big it could catch fire and explode? Shazzam!

[doc30]

If released into the atmosphere methane will react relatively slowly (days or weeks) with oxygen to form CO2, supposedly causing a greenhouse effect and Global warming.

Actually, methane, CH4, is a so-called greenhouse gas just like CO2. The difference is that methane absorbs infrared (i.e. heat) energy at a different wavelengths than CO2. CO2 absorbs around 2350 cm-1 and methane absorbs around 2900 cm-1).

That's why greenies are worried about methane. The IR absorbing properties of CO2 absorb almost all the IR radiation at those wavelengths, so adding more CO2 isn't, at least in my opinion, a major contributor to green house gasses. All the IR that can be absorbed by CO2 is being absorbed by existing CO2 levels. (That's why I'm one of the scientist skeptical of global warming. My work uses the physics behind IR absorption and I have to worry about CO2 interferring with my experiments on a dialy basis.) However, there isn't as much methane in the atmosphere, so adding methane would increase the amount of IR absorbed dramatically, which, in turn, would contribute significantly more to global warming. Same reason why greenies what to ban cattle ranching - too much CH4 from cow f@rts.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Isn't there a scientist who claims that petroleum itself is constantly being made by bacteria that lives in the Earth's crust? That petroleum can be found anywhere, if you drill deep enough? That it IS a renewable resource?"

Actually, what Gold maintains is that there is large amounts of primordial methane, some of which is converted to higher molecular weight hydrocargons by geological processes--not that it is formed by bacteria.

The theory was controversial at one time, but evidence in favor of it is piling up rather steadily.

[Stirner]

I believe that the scientist who contends that petroleum comes from deep in the earth (and not from buried vegetation) is Thomas Gold. There was a proposal some years back to drill through some extremely thick rock formations in Sweden in order to test his theory (on the idea that if there was oil under that rock it would prove that it did not come from vegetation). Never did hear how that turned out.

[PatrickHenry]

Ping to the 2nd half of my list (Junior got the others).

[This ping list is for the evolution -- not creationism -- side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. To be added (or dropped), let me know via freepmail.]

[katana]

I heard a radio interview of Dr. Gold about a year ago. Brilliant man who has a long history of coming up with theories in many fields which the "experts" dispute for about twenty years until he's proven right in the end.

He believes the idea that petroleum is a residue of ancient animal and plant life is absurd. There's far too much of it at depths which simply don't make sense. Also, depleted oil wells that are left dormant for a number of years somehow seem to "refill" for no reason which the conventional theories can explain. He lampoons all the "experts" who were saying that we'd have used up all the earth's petroleum reserves by 1980 while in fact the known reserves are far larger now than they were in the 70's. Finally, and remember the man is a professor of astronomy, he points to the huge amounts of hydrocarbons that are now being detected throughout the known universe.

I think this information does have a tie in with his theories in that Methane is an organic compound the origin of which has nothing to do with earlier life forms. What seems also important is that periodic warming and cooling of the earth has been going on for eons with or without the presence much less the influence of man.

Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Cornell University; founder and for 20 years director of Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research.

Fellow, Royal Society (London)
Member, National Academy of Sciences (US)
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Member, American Philosophical Society
Fellow, American Geophysical Union
Honorary Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge
Gold Medal, Royal Astronomical Society (UK)
Doctor of Science, Cambridge University
Honorary M.A. Harvard University

Previous employment:
John L. Wetherill Professor of Astronomy, Cornell University;
Chairman, Department of Astronomy Assistant Vice President for Research, Cornell University
Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy, Harvard University
Chief Assistant to British Astronomer Royal Lecturer in advanced physics, Cambridge University
Radar development work, British Admiralty during World War II

280 publications in various fields of science, including cosmology, mechanism of mammalian hearing, nature of pulsars as rotating neutron stars, aspects of solar system research, origin of planetary hydrocarbons. For 7 years a member of the President's Space Science Panel (US).

Invited Lectureships:

Vanuxem Lecture, Princeton University
Welch Lecture, University of Toronto
Milne Lecture, Oxford University
George Darwin Lecture, Royal Astronomical Society, London
Lindsay Lecture, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

[aruanan]

Isn't there a scientist who claims that petroleum itself is constantly being made by bacteria that lives in the Earth's crust? That petroleum can be found anywhere, if you drill deep enough? That it IS a renewable resource?

Maybe, but the scientist you're probably thinking of is Thomas Gold from Cornell. The idea is that there are vast quantities of premordial methane trapped in the upper mantle. As it rises to the surface and travels through pressure gradients in different types of rock, it is cracked, forming a variety of long chained carbon molecules. The result is petroleum, coal, and other hydrocarbon deposits. The slight optical rotation of petroleum is caused by the remains of bary/thermophilic bacteria that live off the methane or petroleum. This is why petroleum was thought to be a fossil fuel. That was before more was known discounting that theory. The fossil origin of both coal and oil is itself a theoretical fossil. You can find everything you want to know about this at the link above. Start with the U.S. Geological Survey paper, The Origin of Methane (and oil) in the Crust of the Earth.

[blam]

"Some have theorized that huge methane hydrate bubbles rising under ships could drop them deep into the ocean, and that that is the cause of the Bermuda Triangle mysteries."

Yup. I've seen this on one of the documentary program. In the experiment, the ship sank.