Strange Sounds | June 3, 2018 CET | ~ Environmental threat? 900 previously unknown methane seeps found since 2015 off the coast Oregon near the Cascadia Subduction Zone ~ | .. For the past two years, scientists from Oregon State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have surveyed the Pacific Northwest near-shore region mapping sites where underwater bubble streams signify methane gas is being released from the seafloor. But it is not yet clear whether the methane presents an opportunity for a new source of energy or a potentially serious environmental threat .. And what they have found is eye-opening. Since the first evidence of underwater methane was discovered in the late 1980s, only about 100 “seep sites” had been identified along the Northwest coast through 2015. They often were discovered by accident, when fishermen would spot anomalies on their fish-finders that turned out to be acoustic reflections of the bubbling methane gas. But over the past two years the scientists – aided by new sonar technology on the Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus, owned and operated by the Ocean Exploration Trust – have purposefully gone seeking evidence of underwater methane and have expanded the total number of offshore seep emission sites to a whopping 1,000 locations .. |
Researchers detect more than 1000 Methane Seeps along the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
