Methane may be answer to 56-million-year question: Rice researchers show ocean could have contained enough methane to cause drastic climate change

Link: Methane may be answer to 56-million-year question: Rice researchers show ocean could have contained enough methane to cause drastic climate change

The release of massive amounts of carbon from methane hydrate frozen under the seafloor 56 million years ago has been linked to the greatest change in global climate since a dinosaur-killing asteroid presumably hit Earth 9 million years earlier. New calculations by researchers at Rice University show that this long-controversial scenario is quite possible.

Nobody knows for sure what started the incident, but there’s no doubt Earth’s temperature rose by as much as 6 degrees Celsius. That affected the planet for up to 150,000 years, until excess carbon in the oceans and atmosphere was reabsorbed into sediment.