Study finds evidence for global methane release about 600 million...( ted with significant climate change in ...)

"Linking these dramatic climate events to changes in the methane clathrate pool has important implications for the stability of our current climate," said Martin Kennedy, an associate professor of geology at UC Riverside. "The Earth has a large unstable pool of these clathrates in ocean sediments today, and it is thought that a few degrees of ocean warming could trigger large-scale release into the atmosphere. We now have strong evidence of this doomsday scenario in one of the most important intervals of Earth's biologic history".

The recognition of extreme isotope variability in the rocks examined in south China is expected to stimulate new research.

"This is a very exciting result because the existence of methane seeps and their possible significance in explaining the unusual carbon isotopic signature of the carbonate deposits had been discounted by many on the basis of the lack of expected isotopic heterogeneity," said Nicholas Christie-Blick, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. "If the methane hydrate hypothesis is borne out by new studies that are sure to be stimulated by this research, it represents one more reason for questioning why the snowball Earth edifice is needed."

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) division of earth sciences funded the research. NSF is the federal agency responsible for supporting basic science, engineering and education research. NSF is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of nearly $5.3 billion.

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Contact: Ricardo Duran
ricardo.duran@ucr.edu
909-787-5893
University of California - Riverside
17-Dec-2003