Re: coal

Glenn Morton (grmorton@psyberlink.net)
Thu, 30 Jan 1997 19:42:00 -0600

At 09:19 AM 1/30/97 EST, McCarrick, Allan wrote:
>This is my first post on Evolution.
>
>
>
>On public radio this morning was a report of large deposits of Natural
>Gas-Water slush found off the Carolina coast. This was reported in
>NATURE. Apparently there may be (world-side) more carbon in this form
>than all other "fossil fuels". The reporter said that the researchers
>considered that a sudden release of that amount of methane could have
>caused the rapid reversals of global climate as seen in the ice core
>data.

Welcome.Alan.

Back in the early 80's I used to be the area geophysicist for the East Coast
of the US. As such I looked at lots of seismic data along the entire East
coast. Clathrates are seen on seismic as a bottom mimicking strong
amplitude reflector. They are quite widespread in the deeper parts of the
East coast. Surprisingly we don't see them often in the gulf of Mexico. I
don't know why.We knew about these things, they were a drilling hazard for
us If you drill through them and lots of gas is liberated, it can be
disastrous. If a large bubble of gas comes up under a drillship, it will
lose its bouyancy. Stated simply, a boat can't float in air. I have heard
tales of tugboats being swallowed by a gas bubble, only to bob to the
surface with a bruised and scared crew. They were saved by having been
tightly closed up. Other ships have been lost due to that sort of thing. I
am required to examine seismic data prior to drilling a well so that we can
avoid things like that.

glenn

Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm