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Science

Methane Bubbles Could Sink Ships 101

Posted by timothy from the loose-methane-bubble-lips dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Joseph J Monaghan and David May, of Australia's Monash University, have proposed a novel theory for Bermuda-Triangle-like disappearance of ships at sea: They were swallowed in giant methane bubbles released by undersea vents. Monaghan & May point to sonar of a ship wreck that's sitting in the center of a known methane eruption site, and they've developed a mathematical model that predicts how an eruption could take down a ship. Hey, we ain't talkin' bovine flatulence here..."
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Methane Bubbles Could Sink Ships More

Methane Bubbles Could Sink Ships

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  • Not News (Score:2, Informative)

    by computersareevil ( 244846 )
    This is not news. I've seen this theory on TLC or Discovery at least twice in the last couple of years.
    • i saw the same docu :-)
      also it said about aircraft igniting said released methane exploding and going down....
    • I saw this idea used in a Dirk Pitt novel about 4-5 yrs ago. Clive Cussler must have had some inside info from the research world, or maybe it was just a wild ass theory that make good fiction. Truth is stranger than fiction!
      • This has even been mentioned on Discovery channel and similar venues for quite some time. I like how such a concept can be considered so novel when it's been all over Cable for years.

    • Ditto, except I think it was more like several years ago that I first saw one of those shows. There are absolutely tremendous amounts of frozen methane deposits along the floor of the Bermuda triangle, and the sea floor there is steep and unstable. The theory goes that landslides uncover the methane which under reduced pressure reverts to a gas and violently bubbles its' way to the surface. Ships can't float in gassified water as the gas reduces the water's density.

      The theory also works to explain airplane
    • Indeed not news. Did somebody just tell you it was brand new? ...and you just believed it? It's the context in which I first heard of methane hydrates, when I first got cable TV, about 1993.
      Next story: a changing magnetic field can induce an EMF in a conductor.
  • Read about this when I went to highschool.. which should be.. 5-7 years ago

  • this reminds of my undergraduate days... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fireduck ( 197000 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @01:42PM (#7282395)
    the idea presented by these researchers that the release of massive underwater methane deposits would result in a lowering of the density of seawater under a ship causeing it to sink reminds me of my undergraduate days.

    As a civil engineering student, I visited a wastewater treatment plant. one of the unit processes involves bubbling massive amounts of air through the wastewater (to stimulate bacteria into eat the organic matter) in large open-air tanks. As a result of the aeration, the density of water is much lower than the density of the human body. Therefore, anyone falling into one of these aeration tanks would immediately sink to the bottom. My first thought (and that of many others I've spoken with) is that the aeration tanks are perfect places to murder / dispose of bodies in. You're guaranteed they'll drown; plus you've got the bacteria already there in a nice chomping mood. I have no idea how long this would take to completely dispose of a body (or at least down to bones), but it sure is an underutilized method...

  • No Discovery Channel Down Under? (Score:5, Informative)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @01:47PM (#7282438) Homepage Journal
    The Bermuda Triangle episode is on every few months and they cover the methane angle.

    Looks like it was first proposed in 1981 [teri.res.in].
    • It has certainly been mentioned on BBC's Horizon at least ten years ago.

    • Re:No Discovery Channel Down Under? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Curiously, for the amount of air and sea traffic that regularly passes through the bermuda triangle, compared to the number of sinkings, it's not all that remarkable an area for disappearances. A vessel is no more likely to go down there than it is anywhere else. It is however, a rather busy area when all things are considered, and in the past 100 years was even more so.

  • You need a model for that? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by YouHaveSnail ( 202852 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @01:51PM (#7282468)
    1. Giant undersea release of methane or any other gas bubbles upward.
    2. Unfortunate ship finds itself directly above said bubbles, weighs more than water/gas mixture and is suddenly no longer boyant.
    3. Ship literally falls into the sea.

    But there are many questions, none of which the article seems to answer. If these enormous methan releases exist, why has nobody every seen one? (Well, because they only occur once in a while, and they happen out at sea, and anyone who might have seen one probably now sleeps with the fishes.) More to the point, now that we think they might happen, how can we get a look at one? We apparently know where there are large methane deposits, so can we put a buoy with a camera nearby? Can we find evidence of a release on satellite photos? Can we hear them with underwater microphones? Or with seismographs? Are ships that might have been sunk by this sort of thing equipped with "black boxes" that would help us know how and why they sank?
    • Oh, people have seen it, and even filmed it.
    • set off some explosives on the sea bed to trigger a landslide, watch the bubbles from a submersible or something.

      I rest my case. I mean case closed.
      -Lionel Hutz
    • why has nobody every seen one?

      They certainly have. a BBC documentary called "The day the oceans boiled" (may not be the exact title) has video footage of methane rising from the sea. Not only is it rising and bubbling away for quite some time, but it's burning. The scene is shown several dozen times throughout the show, but it looks to be at least a few minutes long.

      For a ship to sink, all you need is to drop it low enough for ocean to flow in on top. 20-30 seconds would be more than enough.

    • USN (Score:2)

      by Detritus ( 11846 )
      The Navy has underwater sound surveillance networks that have been in place for decades. I believe they have a program for making declassified data available to scientists.

    • This sequence of events has been caught on video for a semi submersable oil rig which 'blew out' a gas well. So it can happen artificially..

      However, for it to happen naturally is extremely unlikely. First, methane hydrates in quantity sufficient to sink a ship are very rare -most occurs in very dispersed form making up less than 1% of the sedimentary volume. Second, the T/P conditions for a large, continuous deposit would have to change very rapidly indeed to get bubbles at the surface - if you only ch

      • <i>And of course, objects with a sufficently low density (ie inflatable lifeboats) would still float, so you would expect at least these.</i>
        <P>
        Presuming of course that someone was quick enough to unlash the lifeboats, get in them, and survive any potential surface fires that might engulf them after the boat sank?
        <P>
    • Giant undersea release of methane

      The original article talked about one giant bubble, but I think you have it here.. one needs just enough small ones to lower the density of the water sufficiently to cause the ship to sink in. Ships operate at pretty tight tolerances against the density of the water since it tends not to change too much. Probably only a 10% density difference would be enough to make the ship sink in until the deck was under water.

      Hmmm.. sounds like an interesting way for a submarine to

  • What would it take to adapt this as a weapon? Heck all you really need are lots of pressurized tanks with a few senors to determine if a ship was expected to pass over. It said it sinks the ship by reducing the density of the water. Wouldn't having tanks of pressurized air which was released as bubbles or may be a plant whose sole purpose was to make lots of little bubbles to sink ships. Would it work? What kind of environmental effects would happen?

  • It's too much for me (Score:3, Funny)

    by Molina the Bofh ( 99621 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @01:54PM (#7282506) Homepage
    So you're saying that deep under the sea, in the Bermuda Triangle, lies hordes of mutant water-breathing, ship-sinking killer farting cows ?
    • "So you're saying that deep under the sea, in the Bermuda Triangle, lies hordes of mutant water-breathing, ship-sinking killer farting cows ?"

      That's a troll? Are there hordes of mutant water-breathing ship sinking killer farting cows reading Slashdot that might be offended?
    • No, the "hordes of mutant water-breathing ship sinking killer farting cows" are apparently generating my Slashdot pages.

  • Just checkin... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mojoviper ( 686950 )
    I doubt it, but I have to ask. Since they mentioned the Bermuda Triangle; any possible linkage w/ planes flying through these methane-bubble infested waters? *shrug*
    • That WOULD explain it - planes flying through methane, KABOOM! However, the other reply is right - they won't by flying THROUGH the waters - maybe over?

  • Skepdic (Score:3, Informative)

    by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @01:55PM (#7282512) Journal

    Seriously, the methane angle has already been proposed a long time ago. And anytime you hear something fantasitical, you should at least consult the skepdic site to see what rational people are thinking. Here's [skepdic.com] the link for Bermuda Triangle accidents. Most skeptics think pirates are the real cause of disappearances.

    GMD

  • Plausible, but... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mind21_98 ( 18647 )
    Isn't methane gas less dense than water? If that's the case, wouldn't it simply float upward and have no effect on the ship? Just curious.
    • Well gee.. if the gas would stay below it wouldn't influence ships, now, would it? The Discovery thing that has been mentioned a couple of times already demonstrates it in a waterlaboratory. A model ship in water, gas bubbles up, big stink, momentarily less boyancy for the ship, ship sinks.
  • the Bermuda-Triangle, then maybe they should see if they can't find some of the ships that came up missing in that area.
    1. If they find any, they may be able to determine what cause it to sink.
    2. If they find any, they can prove that they didn't just disappear.
    3. Even if they don't find any, maybe they can determine if there is a large deposite of methane in that area.

    What the heck, it would give them something to do, and maybe lead to other research involving the ocean.

  • Woooh! (Score:2, Funny)

    by DrMorris ( 156226 )
    Thank god there are no ships cruising around in my bathtub. They'd sink pretty soon when all those methane bubbles would hit them.
  • That's just want the cia-funded alien-descended atlantians WANT you to believe!
  • 2003 saw the first scientifically reported incidence of a whale flatulence. A picture and writeup can be found here [discovery.com]. Warning: the picture caption is bound to induce fits of giggles in young children...or people like me who still find poop jokes funny.
    • > 2003 saw the first scientifically reported incidence of a whale flatulence. A picture and writeup can be found here [discovery.com] . Warning: the picture caption is bound to induce fits of giggles in young children...or people like me who still find poop jokes funny.

      From the article: "...the Australian Antarctic Division scientists have developed a method that allows them to collect whale feces and study its DNA to figure out what the whale recently consumed. "

      Quick! Patent that

  • Silly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quandrum ( 652868 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:19PM (#7282741)
    The real mystery of the Bermuda Triangle is why it's a mystery at all. Modern record keeping shows there haven't been more lost ships then one should expect for an area that large (500,000 square miles) with as much traffic as it gets (which is a lot, though no figures for you today!)

    It's just one of those weird cultural meme's that people shouldn't waste time trying to explain.
    • the real mystery is why The Learning Channel and Discovery channel are considered an authoritative and serious source of information by so many half-braindead couch potatoes.

      Not only does the area get alot of traffic, but it's been a haven of pirates for at least the last four centuries. yeesh.
    • But are there as many unsolved boating accidents other places? There are a large number of accidents that have gone unexplained and that is why mystery surrounds that area.

      However, it is entirely likely that there are the same number of unsolved boat sinkings in other areas as well, but the Bermuda triangle just happened to have a rash of them at some point.
      • But are there as many unsolved boating accidents other places? There are a large number of accidents that have gone unexplained and that is why mystery surrounds that area.

        I once saw a show where they picked a random part of the ocean near Europe which had the same traffic patterns as the Bermuda area. They then looked at all the past maritime records they could find and found the same percentage of unsolved accidents. The myth began from all the books written about the famous Flight 19 [unmuseum.org] incident and jus

  • Methyl-Hydrate (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kevin Burtch ( 13372 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:40PM (#7282977)

    "The ice-like methane deposits can break off and become gaseous as they rise, creating bubbles at the surface."

    Pretty pathetic that this "scientist" just rehashes a decades-old theory dealing with methyl-hydrate, without even calling it by name.

    One cool thing about the program on Discovery that others have already mentioned, is that they show a chunk of the stuff that a guy pulled up from the bottom... he lit it while holding it in his hand!

    Flaming snowballs are cool!
    (literally!)
    • Just a bit of an elaboration... Gas hydrates aren't so much "ice-like methane deposits" as is implied by the article. Gas hydrates ARE ice deposits that happen to have the correct crystalline structure to trap particles of gas in them. To form the hydrates, you need a gas/liquid interface and the correct gas. I believe that methane and CO2 are commonly used ones. Not sure how much bigger the gas molecules can get before they no longer fit in the crystal structure.
  • And the tobacco industry claims that smoking does not kill.
  • Yeah, this is old, but I haven't seen it mentioned about the planes though. The methane rising from the surface forms a cloud when a plane flys through it would kill the lift and pretty much drop it out of the air.

    • Uh, actually it doesn't work to explain aircraft losses. Methane is a gas. Air. Even if somehow this giant bubble of methane doesn't mix with regular air, when the plane flies through bubble lift is not lost, as the same physics that allow a plane to fly in regular air will also work in other gasses.
      • The plane isn't going to be flying very long if its engines stall from lack of oxygen.
        • The engines stall, the pilot goes into a glide and restarts the engines when he's away from the methane. At any reasonable altitude, an airplane should be able to make at least ten miles before reaching sea level.
          • Do planes carry oxygen or are they feeding the pilots pressurised air?

            If they had emergency oxygen, they might have to be quick witted. I don't think they cover this in pilot training. Pressure loss, yeah. Large clouds of unexpected flatulence, nope.

            And as the other guy said, 'bang' :-)
            • But then I realized you had a very valid point.

              Do planes carry oxygen or are they feeding the pilots pressurised air?

              Depends on the plane, but even pressurized aircraft feed their systems on outside air and pilot oxygen systems are usually supplemental rather than 100%. Low-altitude aircraft don't bother with pressurization or oxygen.

              If either one took a slug of combustible mixture into the cabin and someone had a cigarette, kiss the craft goodbye.

              If they had emergency oxygen, they might have to be

      • hrmm, if I remember my physics correctly, lift is created by the drag on the bottom of the wing creating lower air pressure on the top of the wing. Bubbles of methane, in one giant mass or not, would create a lower pressure under the wings when it hit it, either equalizing the air pressure on both sides, or lowering the air pressure on the bottom. Therefore killing lift. Maybe I don't remember correctly but it doesn't sound too far fetched.

  • Obligatory... (Score:3, Funny)

    by smithmc ( 451373 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @04:23PM (#7284038) Journal

    I, for one, welcome our new flatulent ship-eating overlords.
  • ...Was that you?!?
  • We already knew that loose lips sunk ships. Now it seems that hips are a possibility also.
  • They can sink careers too. I farted once during a job interview in a poorly ventellated room.
  • what about all of the airplane downings in the same area? What's that you say? It was only a movie? Oh
  • I went to the authors home pages etc and there is no mention of this work in either area. It make you wonder what the story was based on.

    Both guys work in areas associated with modeling and fluid dynamics so you can see that they might have been associated with it but if it was good enough to get into the news you'd think they would have some reference to it on their sites or their schools sites.

  • We combine simple experiments and numerical simulations to study the effect of a large, single gas bubble rising underneath a floating body. Our motivation is the possible hazards arising from naturally occurring methane gas hydrates in the North Sea. For floating bodies that possess a hull length of similar scale to the bubble's radius of curvature, we identify the conditions for the floating body to sink. Our experiments allow us to extend and benchmark numerical simulations using smoothed particle hydrod

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