There’s a lot of reason to be skeptical about the “mysteries” of the Bermuda Triangle, even if it would make a great Indiana Jones movie. But it’s completely true that ships and planes have disappeared with no good explanation or even a sign of wreckage. But we might finally have found an explanation, thousands of miles away, off the coast of Norway in the Barents Sea.
It turns out the Barents Sea has enormous craters caused by methane hydrate. A common form of methane found in the seabed, methane hydrate can collect in ocean sediment and is normally just another chemical in the seabed. But as the oceans warm and become more acidic, the hydrate becomes unstable, building into pockets. When they burst, it’s so energetic they leave behind craters half a mile wide and seven stories deep in the ocean floor.
As you might guess, being under one of these when it explodes is probably not going to end well. If the burst doesn’t get you, the fact that ships don’t float on methane means your boat is on a one-way trip to the bottom and will be flooded in the time it takes to blink. It’s been proposed as a possible answer for the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, as well as other notorious wrecks. The main issue is that Bermuda doesn’t exactly have a thriving natural gas and oil industry, and nobody’s yet taken a submersible down to see if there are any signs of these craters.
Still, it’s more credible than dimensional gateways or who knows what else has been evoked to explain the Triangle’s somewhat overhyped ability to make ships disappear. And if confirmed, it’ll help seafaring vessels avoid a watery grave. As for dimensional gateways, we’ll just have to put science to work on a Stargate.
(Via IFLScience)