My colleagues and I traversed the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. In the process, we conducted fundamental research on microscopic organisms that hold clues to what the oceans were like in the geologic past. These are intense currents that arise suddenly in the deep ocean. Final samples are removed from Alvin and she gets a final wash down before we head to Key West. We also explored two new sites where gas hydrate occurs at or near the seafloor.
Gas hydrate is an ice-like form of natural gas that is currently attracting great interest.
It turns out that huge amounts of gas hydrate are locked up in the ocean margins - more in fact than at all the known oil and gas reserves combined. Possibly, we could learn to tap these reserves as a new source of fossil fuel. But the shallow burial and the relatively fragile preservation of these deposits indicates that they are only temporary phenomena. Increasingly, researchers believe that at times in the Earth's past, gas hydrate deposits have erupted and radically altered the composition of the atmosphere. Gas hydrate may be our future energy supply.