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Methane Bubbles Could Sink Ships
An anonymous reader writes "Joseph J Monaghan and David May, of Australia's Monash University, have proposed a novel theory for Bermuda-Triangle-like disappearance of ships at sea: They were swallowed in giant methane bubbles released by undersea vents. Monaghan & May point to sonar of a ship wreck that's sitting in the center of a known methane eruption site, and they've developed a mathematical model that predicts how an eruption could take down a ship. Hey, we ain't talkin' bovine flatulence here..."
the idea presented by these researchers that the release of massive underwater methane deposits would result in a lowering of the density of seawater under a ship causeing it to sink reminds me of my undergraduate days.
As a civil engineering student, I visited a wastewater treatment plant. one of the unit processes involves bubbling massive amounts of air through the wastewater (to stimulate bacteria into eat the organic matter) in large open-air tanks. As a result of the aeration, the density of water is much lower than the density of the human body. Therefore, anyone falling into one of these aeration tanks would immediately sink to the bottom. My first thought (and that of many others I've spoken with) is that the aeration tanks are perfect places to murder / dispose of bodies in. You're guaranteed they'll drown; plus you've got the bacteria already there in a nice chomping mood. I have no idea how long this would take to completely dispose of a body (or at least down to bones), but it sure is an underutilized method...
The Bermuda Triangle episode is on every few months and they cover the methane angle.
Looks like it was first proposed in 1981.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Already done. Modern torpedo's work in a similar fashion. They explode underneath a ship creating a bubble of gas. While the bow and stern are still boyant the center of the ship is not so the ship breaks in two under the stress.
The real mystery of the Bermuda Triangle is why it's a mystery at all. Modern record keeping shows there haven't been more lost ships then one should expect for an area that large (500,000 square miles) with as much traffic as it gets (which is a lot, though no figures for you today!)
It's just one of those weird cultural meme's that people shouldn't waste time trying to explain.