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Concerning potential methane seeps, I questioned earlier on what the seabed monitoring ROVs might be seeing.
Maybe somebody can absolutely rule out that the lighter colored patches are NOT methane hydrates. Or maybe they cannot...

In any controversial subject you’re going to have two extremes...The “true believers” that seem to believe everything they see and hear, and the “absolute skeptics” who simply can’t allow that something can be true (because to do so would destroy their own subjective worldviews). Countless examples of both.

To those who say that any of the debated best or worse case scenarios are “impossible”, are almost certainly wrong. They may not be probable, but not impossible.

Could there be a “10-20 mile long, sub-seabed high pressure methane bubble”? Yes. Could it release suddenly, yes, but the probability may be low. If, in such a hypothetical, that were to occur, then yes it could well sink the surface fleet and displace enough seawater to create a rather large wave. Over geological time this has happened before (and will again...). Anywhere such a release occurs could have similar consequences, and one that has been largely left out is that while methane is lighter than air, it isn’t when combined with water vapor. If it occurs near a coastal city, and the cloud ignites at near ground level, think The City of Dresden (WWII).

Hopefully what will happen is that the well hasn’t established a leakage path to the seabed which could then bypass the well/relief wells, and they can close it up. Will it happen again in some fashion? Of course, humans never (or rarely) learn from their mistakes. Thats why history repeats itself endlessly.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6746