Methane is colorless and odorless and it is right above us in the atmosphere.
In addition to other sources, methane has traveled from the Arctic and has blanketed most of the Northern Hemisphere.
The well-known sources are methane hydrates from the Arctic Ocean floor and methane coming from thawing permafrost.
There is also another less well-known source. During the geologic history of the Arctic area, tectonic plates have spread, crashed into each other and subducted under one another. Geologists call the Arctic a tectonic plate junkyard. There are numerous fractures in the earth's crust there.
A quote from earth scientist Malcolm Light: ‘Mantle methane formed from the reduction of oceanic carbonates by water in the presence of iron (II) oxides buried to depths of 100 km to 300 km in the Asthenosphere and at temperatures above 1200°C.’ This is a nonorganic source of methane formed near the earth's mantel. Katey Walter Anthony from the University of Alaska calls it geologic methane.
Vast reservoirs of methane have been created by chemical reactions and stored near the mantle under a lot of pressure for millennia.
The methane has had a route to the surface through the fractures in the earth's crust, but the fractures have been sealed over by ice. Now for the first time in human history, the ice sealing the fractures is thawing. Methane is rising through the fractures and into the atmosphere. This methane has migrated to the United States and is over us.
Harold Hensel,
Cedar Rapids.
Earlier published as
Letter to the Editor
Cedar Rapids Gazette
(without images)
Related
- Study: Geologic methane seeping from thawing cryosphere - by Marmian Grimes
http://uafcornerstone.net/study-geologic-methane-seeping-from-thawing-cryosphere
- Focus on Methane - by Malcolm Light
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/07/focus-on-methane.html
Letter to the Editor
Cedar Rapids Gazette
(without images)
Related
- Study: Geologic methane seeping from thawing cryosphere - by Marmian Grimes
http://uafcornerstone.net/study-geologic-methane-seeping-from-thawing-cryosphere
- Focus on Methane - by Malcolm Light
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/07/focus-on-methane.html
- Arctic Atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil - by Malcolm Light, Harold Hensel and Sam Carana
- Mantle Methane - by Malcolm Light
Post by Sam Carana.
Our ability to see Methane levels is deliberately undercut by government linked at the hip to Corporate.
ReplyDeleteNASA under Bush rule in 2006 had its Mission wording changed to eliminate protecting Earth as Goal.
It now says it is to be leader in exploration and aeronautics research but it really isn't because the CH4 sensitive Merlin Lidar type laser response telescopic comparator Satellite technology is led by German technology flying on French lift platform. It's a corporate venture..
Meanwhile some 80 scientists crammed on a Swedish icebreaker are heading toward East Siberian Arctic Shelf to see and confirm methane rising from continental shelf. And Scientists are extremely worried about the extent of heat now getting at Methane Clathrate because it is definitely fully capable of extincting Earth if it suddenly goes into a release frenzy..
But the world of TV coverage and discussion of the Palestinian Israeli Gaza Strip situation precludes discussion in what amounts to a closed feedback loop. Earth is in a Closed System Entropy Rise.
440 nuclear power stations globally are bombs set to blow in flood, wind and fire.
ReplyDeleteThe West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed 60x in the last 2 million years, at around 14.44'C global average surface temperature, as glacial melt-water entered the super-volcanic magma chamber and caused a hydro-magmatic explosion in the Rift Abyss.
2340 years ago it blew a 200km2 hole in the ice with a global flood and 5000 years ago it collapsed the ice sheet, with a 5 metre global flood. The super-volcano is now active beneath the ice and could explode at any time. Such floods are usually accompanied by earth-quakes, volcanicity, tsunamis and 12 metre storm surges.
When we hear the roar and see the fire it may be too late. We need low interest funding for solar pv, solar hot water, electric boilers, electric cars, etc, now, 2015, to bring the global temperature down to 14.3'C directly. We cant wait til 2020.
Nuclear power stations should be FDR to burn up existing wastes and small scale thorium, encased in concrete and buried in the ground. We must decommission all existing nuclear power stations located by the sea or in earth-quake fracture zones.
We have to act now.
God Bless, God's Witness, Bride of Yehashuah.v