Sandra Arndt also worked on the study. At the time, she was with Utrecht University in The Netherlands. She says the high pressure and cold temperatures under the ice make good conditions for forming methane hydrate. And she says it was not surprising that the study confirmed the presence of methane hydrate. The substance is a solid similar to ice. It is formed when methane gets trapped within a structure of water molecules.
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: The continent of Antarctica is mainly over the South Pole, almost totally south of the Arctic Circle. The scientists say the organic material came from a period thirty five million years ago. At that time, Antarctica was much warmer than today and contained life forms.
Researcher Slawek Tulaczyk of the University of California at Santa Barbara described how methane formed. She said some of the organic material became trapped in material that had fallen to the bottom. She said these sediments, in her words, were then “cut off from the rest of the world when the ice sheet grew.”
The scientists say fifty percent of the West Antarctic ice sheet and twenty-five percent of the East Antarctic sheet are on sedimentary basins. They said these areas hold about twenty one billion tons of carbon.
BOB DOUGHTY: The Antarctic Ice Sheet covers land, but not the surrounding sea. Methane hydrates are also found at the bottom of oceans.
Earlier this year, news about methane gas came from the opposite end of the world. Researchers reported finding thousands of places in the Arctic where the gas was rising to the surface.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25