Slashdot Mirror
America's Methane Mystery: NASA Set To Investigate Hotspot Over the 4 Corners
schwit writes A "hot spot" of the largest concentration of methane seen over the United States is in the area near the Four Corners intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah and covers 2,500 square miles. The hotspot predates widespread fracking in the area. Researchers from several institutions are now in the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest with a suite of airborne and ground-based instruments, aiming to uncover reasons for a mysterious methane "hot spot" detected from space. "With all the ground-based and airborne resources that the different groups are bringing to the region, we have the unique chance to unequivocally solve the Four Corners mystery," said Christian Frankenberg, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, who is heading NASA's part of the effort.
What you say is true. But the mystery is why this location has so much more methane than other coal regions. It could be that there's just much more gas escaping from the coal fields than anywhere else; we'll see.
Because methane is a very potent greenhouse gas.
I'm not sure why you bring flatulence into the discussion at all.
Besides, there is a scientific mystery, so scientists want to solve it, independently of how good methane's rap is.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Not a matter of coal mining, but rather some fields make a huge of amount of methane so collection facilities are located there. This region is the largest producing commercial coalbed methane one in the nation. Thus no mystery and no surprise, it's like someone suddenly decided they needed funding for a study and are harping on something I knew 30+ years ago.