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Nature 407, 577-579 (5 October 2000) | doi:10.1038/35036677

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Microbiology: Resolving a methane mystery

Edward F. DeLong

Large reservoirs of natural methane, constituting perhaps twice the amount of all known fossil-fuel stores, lie buried beneath the sea floor. Yet little of this vast methane reserve regularly escapes from oxygen-depleted (anoxic) marine sediments into the surrounding water column.