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Climate science

Methane uncovered

Nature Geoscience volume 5, pages 373–374 (2012)Cite this article

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Methane emissions from natural gas reservoirs have long been largely overlooked. The discovery of abundant geological gas seeps in areas of cryosphere degradation highlights the relevance of these emissions to the greenhouse gas budget.

Hydrocarbon gases, such as methane, can be generated in the subsurface by both microbial and thermal degradation of organic matter. Microbial gas is produced at shallow depths and low temperatures. Thermogenic production occurs at much greater depths and at higher temperatures. Gases emanating from seeps are mainly thermogenic in origin4,5.

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Figure 1: Earth degassing versus modern natural methane sources9.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Giuseppe Etiope is at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Roma 2, 00143 Rome, Italy; and the Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, Babes-Bolyai University, RO-400294 Cluj-Napoca, Romania,

    Giuseppe Etiope

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  1. Giuseppe Etiope
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Correspondence to Giuseppe Etiope.

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Etiope, G. Methane uncovered. Nature Geosci 5, 373–374 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1483

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