![methane_bubbles[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/methane_bubbles1.jpg?quality=83)
We’ve seen all this before, but there is a twist this time, the authors of the paper are dialing back the alarm a bit.
“…authigenic carbonates observed imply that emissions have continued for more than 1,000 years at some seeps.”
From the BBC – 24 August 2014 ‘Widespread methane leakage’ from ocean floor off US coast
Researchers say they have found more than 500 bubbling methane vents on the seafloor off the US east coast.
The unexpected discovery indicates there are large volumes of the gas contained in a type of sludgy ice called methane hydrate.
There are concerns that these new seeps could be making a hitherto unnoticed contribution to global warming.
The scientists say there could be about 30,000 of these hidden methane vents worldwide.
Previous surveys along the Atlantic seaboard have shown only three seep areas beyond the edge of the US continental shelf.
Here is the sonar image:
………..
There are concerns that these new seeps could be making a hitherto unnoticed contribution to global warming……..
The scientists say that the warming of ocean temperatures might be causing these hydrates to send bubbles of gas drifting through the water column….
“But it is important to say we simply don’t have any evidence in this paper to suggest that any carbon coming from these seeps is entering the atmosphere.”
h/t to reader “Jimbo” in Tips and Notes
The paper:
Widespread methane leakage from the sea floor on the northern US Atlantic margin
- Sharke et al. Nature Geoscience (2014) doi:10.1038/ngeo2232
Methane emissions from the sea floor affect methane inputs into the atmosphere1, ocean acidification and de-oxygenation2, 3, the distribution of chemosynthetic communities and energy resources. Global methane flux from seabed cold seeps has only been estimated for continental shelves4, at 8 to 65 Tg CH4 yr−1, yet other parts of marine continental margins are also emitting methane. The US Atlantic margin has not been considered an area of widespread seepage, with only three methane seeps recognized seaward of the shelf break. However, massive upper-slope seepage related to gas hydrate degradation has been predicted for the southern part of this margin5, even though this process has previously only been recognized in the Arctic2, 6, 7. Here we use multibeam water-column backscatter data that cover 94,000 km2 of sea floor to identify about 570 gas plumes at water depths between 50 and 1,700 m between Cape Hatteras and Georges Bank on the northern US Atlantic passive margin. About 440 seeps originate at water depths that bracket the updip limit for methane hydrate stability. Contemporary upper-slope seepage there may be triggered by ongoing warming of intermediate waters, but authigenic carbonates observed imply that emissions have continued for more than 1,000 years at some seeps. Extrapolating the upper-slope seep density on this margin to the global passive margin system, we suggest that tens of thousands of seeps could be discoverable.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2232.html
From Jerry Henson on August 26, 2014 at 1:07 am (out of sequence):
Here you can just drop URLs in your comment, WordPress will automatically convert them to a click-able link. I’ll show you in a second.
URL:
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2008/10/09/bold-traveler/
Deep life whose energy derives from radioactive decay, not hydrocarbons, which eats rock and makes organic molecules from scratch. Found the paper:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/322/5899/275
Environmental Genomics Reveals a Single-Species Ecosystem Deep Within Earth
Diligent scientific researchers working tirelessly have discovered an amazing energy source, sunlight. It fuels the growth of plants by an amazing process known as photosynthesis. This results in energy being stored in organic matter such as leaves and stems which eventually fall to the ground and decompose, releasing the stored energy for use by organisms within the topsoil. The large amount of energy provided by sunlight thus leads to the production of very rich topsoil, with the proper addition of necessary minerals of course.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/315502/kerogen
Crushed oil shale into sealed retort, heat, kerogen becomes oil and gases.
From PeterF on August 26, 2014 at 2:08 am:
You know what happens when cattle raised in a high-pressure environment under the seabed are quickly brought to the surface?
Physics happens!
First we assume a spherical cow…
Kadaka,
You don’t like the Kenney et. al. paper, so you portray it as a non-peer reviewed submission that slipped through in error, evading all of its substance by ridiculing a single phrase employed with a description of how methanogens — “bean eaters” — produce methane. Ridiculing that phrase doesn’t undermine the validity of the paper; it doesn’t undermine the enthalpy calculations, the conclusion, or the implications flowing from the reproducible experiment producing abiotic hydrocarbons from marble and water in a diamond anvil (duplicated in several laboratories since, btw).
“Deep life whose energy derives from radioactive decay, not hydrocarbons, which eats rock and makes organic molecules from scratch. Found the paper: […]”
I found a better paper:
And another:
No nuclear reaction there at all. Same chemicals as you claim fro nuclear reactions, except I also get hydrocarbon. Much better, as I said.
1) Titan has methane seas, replenished by serpentisation. Not biological.
2) Comet Haley is approximately 1/3 kerogen, a.k.a. “oil shale.” Not biological.
3) All crude all contains deep-earth diamondoids. Not biological.
4) low-energy reactants don’t react spontaneously to yield high energy products. 2nd thermodynamic law applies to chemistry. (see the paper you ridiculed)
4) “The capital fact to note is that petroleum was born in the depths of the earth, and it is only there that we must seek its origin.” — Dmitri Ivanovitch Mendeléev, 1877 (“Nutty” Table of Elements Guy)
5) Life comes from petroleum, not vice versa:
http://living-petrol.blogspot.com/ncr
(that’s my multi-disciplinary meta study of sorts (for meta students) presenting convergent evidence from Earth and the heavens, including some magnificent pictures and video from NOAA/Marum/WHOI/NASA & ESA, plus brief guest appearance by David Attenborough to explain the geochemical origin of methane in the Gulf of Mexico. It is recommend for study by a highly-qualified expert.)
From Khwarizmi August 26, 2014 at 5:22 am
http://living-petrol.blogspot.com/ncr
Khwarizimi, your link goes to a wonderful collection of publications, photos and videos, thank you!
I must say, if I don’t find at least 97% of fossilollogists to support my theory that the reason for the ocean’s methane seeps is James Bond’s Blofield who is doing underwater cattle herding, I might resort back to abiotic carbohydrogens as an explanation 😉
So now we have a situation that basically wherever we drill – or even only look – on the ocean floor or on land we find methane, ethane, and higher carbohydrogens coming up from below. I am sure it can all be explained in fossil theory; all we need to do is explain how everywhere on land and ocean the dinosaurs were able to dig themselves into some 1000 meters of soil and rock, lay themselves to rest, cover with algae sauce, cover with removed 1000m of soil, and let them rot to become oil.
As soon as we have found a skeleton of a drill dinosaur, this theory can be considered proven!/sarc
Khwarizimi at 5:22 am
Thanks, I second.
Yipee! There has got to be a pony somewhere in there.
From Khwarizmi on August 26, 2014 at 5:22 am:
YOU ARE MISREPRESENTING MY WORDS FROM THE START! I clearly said “This is clearly a non-peer-reviewed “pass through” member submission, not meant to be taken seriously.” That does not indicate it slipped through in error, but that it was slipped through deliberately.
You are a bad person. You fib.
Again with the fibbing! Your mother should have washed your filthy mouth out with lye soap to teach you to stop fibbing!
That is clearly an article somewhere online, might only be a press release. You did not provide the link to it. It is not a paper. It might have been a press release about a paper. But you did not provide the link to the paper, and you did not provide a link to the article that may have been only a press release, thus obfuscating the trail to the paper.
Since including the link to the article is such a simple thing, you only have to paste it, it seems likely you deliberately withheld the link to prevent me from examining the truth of your claim about a paper.
As it is, you have nothing.
And you finish up with two blog links as your concluding proof? Haven’t you been told you can’t find scientific proof on blogs?
SIGINT EX
Step 1) 2 NaCl (Salt) + 2 H2O -> 2 NaOH + H2 + Cl2 (Chlorine Gas)
Step 2) CH4 (Methane) + 4 Cl2 → CCl4 (Carbon Tetrachloride) + 4 HCl (Hydrochloric Acid)
In Step 2 Carbon Tetrachloride escapes the oceans to make the Ozone holes at the poles and becomes the nemesis of the Montreal Protocol and we get ocean acidification from Hydrochloric Acid.
I was wondering about a natural process since there was a report last week about there being too much tetrachloromethane in the atmosphere. Though wouldn’t such a process produce a mixture of chloromethanes? (Not that any of the others appear to be banned.)
Also undersea vulcanism can produce HCL (and other mineral acids.)
I always thought this was the most plausible explanation of “The Devil’s Triangle” mystery. An enormous methane “burp” would give a ship instant negative buoyancy. Likewise, an aircraft flying through it would lose lift and I suspect the engine would start running strangely. The claim is that there are copious quantities of methane hydrates in that area. Just a theory, but more credible than aliens.
Mark and SIGINT EX
Do you seriously think that these reactions can take place ? If so you are seriously deluded.
Step 1 can only occur as an electrolysis process – it needs electrodes and a supply of electricity.
Salt and water produce salt water/ saline ONLY i.e seawater
Step 2 is a free radical chain reaction and occurs only in the presence of sunlight/UV light
Sunlight is in short supply in the ocean depths.
Stop posting rubbish.
Kadaka,
That’s a lot of mean-spirited and mostly redundant words for which a simple “do you have a link?” would have done the job:
First Investigation of the Microbiology of the Deepest Layer of Ocean Crust
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.001539
If you don’t like the findings, just claim that the paper was published for the purpose of ridicule by enlightened folks like you: “not meant to be taken seriously.” I will happily dismiss the rest of your desultory “argument” on the basis of your own fallacious “reasoning,” being that you presented it here … on a mere “blog.”
This is the published peer-reviewed paper that takes up most of the home page on Martin Hovland’s “blog,” btw:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025322712000564
It’s rather pertinent.
Methane is irrelevant. Its absorption spectrum is entirely overlapped by H2O.