METROL project will contribute critical data and understanding needed to predict the future impact of seafloor methane for global climate change.

METROL: "Project intro
Methane is one of the most important energy sources in the industrialized world, but is also an effective greenhouse gas when emitted into the atmosphere. Vast amounts of methane are formed in European margin sediments leading to the formation of free gas, to complex carbonate structures, and to enhanced methane emission. These processes are important for environmental quality, for offshore operations of the hydrocarbon industry, and for climate development. However, a high percentage of the entire methane flux, maybe 90%, is retained in the seafloor through anaerobic oxidation by microorganisms.

METROL aims to explore the microbiological and geochemical controls of this methane barrier in order to quantify current methane fluxes and evaluate the effect of environmental change on sea floor methane release. The project will contribute critical data and understanding needed to predict the future impact of seafloor methane for global climate change.

METROL has started on 1 November 2002. The total duration is 36 months."


MY COMMENTS: ... nearly finished three years of research on the methalhydroxide ice sheets and other methane deposits on the sea floor and how they are kept in check by microbe oxydizing methane directly underwater. I am more interested in developing the technology to not only control these dynamic and fragile geochemicalphysical structures but to harvest useable methane or other burnable gas from the capture and processing of the massive amounts of methane that is trapped on the ocean floor from millenia of decaying organics, high pressures and low temps.

It is now believed that it is the release of massive amounts of methane from massive frozen slabs of hydoxylmethane on the sea floor that was some how disturbed by earthquake or such, causing warm water to enter the frozen methane melting it to gas creating a bubble column capable of sinking a ship or downing an airplane. This explained the mysterious disappearances throughout the Burmuda Triangle in my mind years ago and opened my mind up to a great new gold mine, deep beneath the sea which we will someday learn to harvest and use to the betterment of humanity - the natural gas of the sea - methane.