Discover the mysterious under the bottoms of the world's oceans!

Scientists have discovered a vast reservoir of methane under the world's oceans, stored in small pockets inside olivine.

Scientists have long known that methane is buried under the seabed, which has been released by deep openings, but its exact origins were unclear.

Methane is thought to form when seawater is trapped in rocks and undergoes a chemical reaction.

Scientists believe that all pockets of microscopic methane combined could be one of the largest sources of non-biological methane on the planet.

Studies have revealed that this methane production not only contributes to life on Earth, but can also provide a source of methane on other planets in the solar system.

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Geologist Jeffrey Seewald of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts analyzed 160 rocks of the Earth's crust from the lower and upper layers of the Earth.

Samples were taken from the hills of the different oceans, the areas of immersion where the tectonic plate sank under each other and the so-called ophiolites: parts of the oceanic crust that have been pushed on a continental crust.

In almost all the samples, scientists discovered small pockets of methane, often accompanied by hydrogen.

"The identification of a non-vital source of high-seas methane is a problem we have faced for many years," said Seewald.

Scientists believe that methane is produced when seawater, which penetrates deep into the oceanic crust, is trapped in a mineral called olivine (olivine) at temperatures above 400 degrees Celsius, to form what the 39 is called "fluid insertion".

The most abundant olivine metal, the upper mantle of the Earth. As the rocks cool below 340 ° C, the basement water reacts with the surrounding olivine, according to a process called "zigzag", which produces both methane and methane. hydrogen.

Based on the amount of methane present in the rock samples collected, the research team estimates that submarine sediments are probably more important than the size of the methane in the Earth's atmosphere prior to it. industrial age.

The results could have repercussions on the presence of methane and life on other planets. Methane, for example, was found on Mars and is also found on Titan, the moon of Saturn.

The complete results of the study were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: Daily Mail

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