Scientists discover frozen methane gas deposit off California

ap on Bakersfield Californian ^ | 1/28/06 | Alicia Chang - ap

[freedumb2003]

Scientists discover frozen methane gas deposit off California

No, that is just the political speeches from Pelosi, Boxer and DiFi.

[Rebelbase]

Drilling for oil was difficult and virtually non existent 150 years ago. Technology has come a long way and will go even farther.

"Scientists were plumbing the Pacific Ocean on an unrelated expedition when they accidentally. came across the volcano,"

Amazing that something like that could exist less than 20 miles off the coast of California and we're just now discovering it. The wealth of the resources in the ocean boggles the mind and we've yet to discover a fraction of it.

[Paleo Conservative]

Methane hydrate is a geological hazard. No one has yet developed technology to mine it safely.

[Noumenon]

Although scientists say a new source of natural gas would provide a near-limitless energy source, some worry about the environmental effects of the gas.

[Moonman62]

Frozen farts.

[Emmett McCarthy]

Yeah, I was thinking I could figure out a way to light and heat my whole house - and eat whatever I want, too!

[spokeshave]

Frozen Methane Eh.....

Better get that out before global warming takes its toll.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Again: such very, very deep discoveries of methane bring up questions about the basic source of these light hydrocarbons.

Coal? No questions: The coal beds clearly are from laid down buried plant deposits. But methane/hydrocarbons/oil from deeper than 5,000 feet?

Not even the Grand Canyon rocks (themselves barren/void of life that deep!) support massive amounts of life: and these on the ocean floor are three times as deep, implying three times older.

[hosepipe]

[ The wealth of the resources in the ocean boggles the mind and we've yet to discover a fraction of it. ]

True.. methane is obviously natural.. Maybe fusion should not be the solution to our energy problems but finding out how methane is created naturally.. The answer could be technologically feasible and maybe cheap.. Heck an organism makes ALCOHOL, why not.. Maybe a genectically engineered critter to feed on underground coal deposits creating methane.. There no lack of coal..

[Mobile Vulgus]

Umm, did they find it in Senator Boxer's head?

[Moonman62]

Why not genetically engineer crops to capture fusion energy from the Sun?

[Strategerist]

Not even the Grand Canyon rocks (themselves barren/void of life that deep!) support massive amounts of life: and these on the ocean floor are three times as deep, implying three times older.

Ummmm...the ocean floor...EVERYWHERE on the earth, is very young. Not even remotely close to the oldest land rocks; oceans keep getting destroyed by subduction zones. The oldest ocean crust on earth is only 160 million years old.

[OnRightOnLeftCoast]

They could mine methane gas forever from Congress!

[Recon Dad]

The newly discovered deposit is located at the summit of a mud volcano 15 miles off the Southern California coast. Scientists were plumbing the Pacific Ocean on an unrelated expedition when they accidentally came across the volcano, which sits on top of an active fault zone in the Santa Monica Basin.

I would only rent.......volcano........active fault zone

[Mike Darancette]

But methane/hydrocarbons/oil from deeper than 5,000 feet?

How old can the terrain atop a mud volcano be? The water may be deep but ocean floors are among the youngest crusts on earth.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Right: So you see my dilemma.

If "oil" (methane/light oils/heavy crude oils/heavy-tarry asphalts) were ALL coming from the pre-Cambrian/early plant deposits getting squished/baked together, then how could they found under the ocean floor in these "new ocean" floor areas?

The "renewal" of the ocean crust seems to preclude either from happening:

1. New ocean floor is coming up from the interior lifeless and barren and uncovered. It CAN'T have either: earth's surface plant/organic life, nor deposited ocean droppings (from fish and plankton and organic matter washed down from the shore rivers), nor covering sedimentary rock deposited over the organic matter. So "new ocean floor" can't have oil.

2. "Old" ocean floor flowing "into" a subduction region gets heated and destroyed as the rock itself is melted. (The Ring of Fire" around the Pacific is the circle of volcanoes that arise as this newly melted crustal rocks comes up from the subduction zone.) Any oil/methane in these rocks that is subducted is clearly also destroyed as a chemical. Supporting this conclusion is the fact that no "oil fields" are discovered "past" (further inland) subduction zones.

3. The rest of the "ocean floor" just hasn't been around long enough for its deposited organic matter to (1) build up in enough quantities, get covered by sedimentary (dead rock) matter to get enough heat and pressure to turn into what we find now as oil.

Second. Off of "stagnant" undersea plains, we KNOW absolutely that oil is found (North Sea, TX/LA/FL coasts, Venezuela, Malaysia, etc. So, in these undersea fields, we have a different problem. The TIME that the original organic matter got deposited in order to FORM the oil fields that we now find doesn't seem to add up: If somebody finds pockets of oil/gas under 10,000-15,000 feet of rock, then ALL of that rock HAS to have been deposited AFTER the surface plant life lived, and BEFORE the "ocean" covered up the plants/microbes. And there isn't enough time for that to have happened.

Third: Many inland oil fields are also too deep to be explained by surface plants and microbes. In the MidEast and deep TX and OK fields, the land is basically stagnant since the Appalachian mountains were formed and Africa broke away from North America. So ALL of the oil had to have been deposited ALREADY that many thousand feet underground BEFORE the mountains were raised up.

And not only had the (surface) plants and organic matter have to been alive long enough to be captured and buried, but the 10,000 feet of surface rock had to be deposited as well to create the mass.

[Robert A Cook PE]

But methane/hydrocarbons/oil from deeper than 5,000 feet?

How old can the terrain atop a mud volcano be? The water may be deep but ocean floors are among the youngest crusts on earth.

Right: So IF our "oil" and "gas" deposits come from deeply deposited (surface) plant and animal matter transformed BY the pressure of its overlaying rock and heated by the earth's internal heat over millions of years: HOW can tons of frozen methane be found AT THE TOP of a "new" volcano off of CA with NO overlaying rock (to create pressure!) and NO massive millions of millions of pounds of plant matter deposited to create the source carbons?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Related and thought provokating thread:

Ready for $262/barrel oil?

[Seeking the truth]

This does seem to lend some credence to Gold's theory, nicht war?