"After our youngest son had seen Star Wars for the twelfth or thirteenth time, I said, "Why do you go so often?" He said, "For the same reason you have been reading the Old Testament all of your life." He was in a new world of myth." Bill Moyers, interview with Joseph Campbell
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VEDANTA MASS MEDIAIce sheet may be blamed for warming
 


            

 

  
             Ice sheet may be blamed for warming



     Washington, Jan 27: A new study by geoscientists has suggested that the release of natural gas by carbon-hungry bacteria trapped deep in the rock beneath ice sheets contributed to global warming observed during the ice age.

 

     The study also helps explain high levels of methane in the atmosphere that occurred between ice ages, a trend recorded in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica.

 

     According to Steven Petsch, a geoscientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the author of the study, natural gas, which is mostly methane, was released from the shale into the atmosphere.

 

     "Bacteria digested the carbon in the rocks and made large amounts of natural gas in a relatively short time, tens of thousands of years instead of millions," said Petsch.

 

     "This suggests that it may be possible to seed carbon-rich environments with bacteria to create natural gas reservoirs," he added.

 

     Petsch used the chemistry of water and rock samples from the Antrim shale, which sits like a bowl beneath northern Michigan in the US, to recreate the past. For most of its history, the Antrim Shale contained water that was too salty to allow bacteria to grow.

 

     But areas rich in natural gas showed an influx of fresh water that was chemically different from modern rainfall. "This water, which is similar to melt water from glaciers formed during the ice age, was injected into the rock by the pressure of the overlying ice sheets," said Petsch.

 

     Glacial melt water diluted the salt water already present in the shale, allowing the bacteria to thrive and quickly digest available carbon. The natural gas they produced was chemically similar to the surrounding water and had a unique carbon chemistry that proved its bacterial origin.

 

     According to the study, at least 75% of the gas was released into the atmosphere as the ice sheets retreated, adding to methane from other sources such as tropical wetlands.

 

     While methane from the Antrim Shale accounts for a small fraction of the rise in methane observed between ice ages, there are many natural gas deposits that were formed in the same geologic setting. The cumulative effect may have caused large emissions of methane to the atmosphere.

 

 

 

     Bureau Report

 


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International Yoga Day 21 June 2015
International Yoga Day 21 June 2015


 

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