On Wed, 22 Sep 1999, Oguzhan Aydogmus-HRB wrote:
> Authoizeds said methane burst.But I thing it's not satisfy.

Many coastal areas have what are called "gas clathrates" which are
hydrocarbons like methane caged inside a special kind of low density ice
structure. They are very unstable however (it is a metastable phase), and any
shaking could easily cause the exsolution of the gases.  People are trying to
find safe ways to mine the stuff, but the technical challenges have not yet
been overcome...  This has worried some people in regions like the
northwestern US where large resevoirs of the stuff are reported to exist.  A
big cascadia quake could upset it easily.  Another interesting thing is that
some people attribute dissapearances in the Bermuda Triangle to these gas
bursts because they could easily sink a ship or choke a plane engine.

John Hernlund
E-mail: hernlund@.......
WWW: http://www.public.asu.edu/~hernlund/

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