Scary isn't a sufficiently intense modifier to decribe the concept of a oceanic methane disaster. Here's an article suggesting that BP may have triggered something even worse than the oil mess.
- The oceans periodically release massive eruptions of explosive methane gas (normally frozen in the form of a clathrate).
- Such an event last caused a mass extinction 55 million years ago, and another 196 million years before.
- Methane is now streaming out of the seabed and the borehole of the first relief well.
- Subterranean methane is pressurized at 100,000 psi. Methane pressure at the wellhead is now 40,000 psi.
- The ocean floor is succumbing to the increasing pressure.
- A huge expanse of seabed around the well bulges as high as 30 feet.
- Discovery of a giant rift on the ocean floor, 10 miles from the well, that may go miles deep, reported by NOAA research ship. Oil and methane are pouring out there.
- New fissures now spotted at 30 miles distance.
- Government enforced news blackout again.
- Methane levels in water may already be one million times higher than normal.
- Underground methane sea is gradually melting from the nearby surging oil that’s estimated to be as hot as 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
- A catastrophic collapse of the seabed, releasing enormous amounts of methane, and generating massive tsunami, could happen within six months.
Here is the cheerful article from which the above summary was taken:
Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world-killing' event
See also the following pages for additional info:
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