Hmm, nope, the Web tells me that I'm thinking of Lake Nyos, and that was
C02, suddenly released when the lake overturned after prolonged
degassing of subsurface magma to the deepest parts of the lake.
This web thing can be pretty cool.
"Michael M. Butler" wrote:
>
> Methane hydrates were a complete surprise to me! I did a search on
> methane crystal ocean
> with google and got a slew of cool websites, including
> http://www.ocean.washington.edu/people/grads/vbhat/ocean450/workshop/g3_prog.html
>
> Thanks, Phil!
>
> MMB
>
> > The methane crytals really are there, in vast abundance, but were only
> > fairly recently identified as such, because it's hard to get them to the
> > surface intact. There has been a lot of speculation since their discovery
> > that they might serve as a useful energy supply in the near future,
> > comparable in total ergs to natural gas, but there is also the worry that
> > the layers might not be all that stable...
>
> Whew. Isn't there a story about some methane event (not sure if it's
> methane hydrates or not)
> with some lake, where evidence suggests that a sudden burp did seriously
> bad things to the local ecology (a mass-die-off, IIRC)?
>
> Hmm, better fire up google again...
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