Fate of buried organic matter

Buried organic material is degraded by microbes, thermogenically altered by heat and pressure, or buried more deeply and lost to the surface carbon cycle.…

Estimates of the methane held in hydrates worldwide

Early estimates for marine hydrates (encompassed by the green region), made before hydrate had been recovered in the marine environment, are high because they…

Penetration of heat into permafrost-bearing sediment

Thawing permafrost acts as a thermal buffer, slowing the diffusion of heat into sediment. Once dissociated, however, gas released at the top of the…

Methane-rich plumes in water column on the West Svalbard continental margin

A: Location of survey area west of Svalbard; bathymetry (Jakobsson et al. 2008). B: Positions of acoustically imaged plumes are depicted by “pins” superimposed…

Evolution of a pingo-like feature (PLF)

As the subsurface warms, the top of the gas hydrate stability zone moves downward (yellow arrows in the left panel). Warming results in gas…

Arctic surface air-temperature change

Change is measured relative to measurements from 1901 to 1950 (black curve). Orange region is the 2001-2100 prediction given the A1B scenario (pCO2 increase…

Methane release from sediment

This schematic cross-section of a high-latitude ocean margin, broken into five distinct zones, contains four potential methane sources. Methane is released from sediment along…

Gas hydrate production methods

For each of the three proposed gas hydrate production methods (left frame), conditions within initially stable hydrate-bearing sediment are shifted such that hydrate at…