As if all that weren't bad enough, we might consider the much more horrible additional side effects of the large-scale methane release.
- Initially some of the methane gas being released would spontaneously oxidize, transforming it into CO2. Sounds great in terms of reducing methane's greenhouse effect, but in fact that very oxidation would rob the oceans of their small amount of dissolved oxygen. This dissolved oxygen is what all fish, shellfish, and ocean life (excepting higher vertebrates and some bacteria) breathe! We would witness mass deaths of fish as never before seen -- right on the continental shelves, where the methane release would be most strongly felt. Entire fisheries would be eliminated, and the oceans would go dead over large areas. The only winners would be methane-eating bacteria, which would cover the continental shelves in layers meters thick. Yukk.
- Next the methane would reach the atmosphere. The impact on atmospheric oxygen supplies would be less profound than in the ocean, so there's little need to fear death by asphyxiation. However, once the methane collecting in the atmosphere came into contact with clouds of water vapor (which are nearly everywhere), the clouds of saturated methane/water vapor would be denser than air, and would therefore settle close to the ground -- like a fog. Except......this fog would be highly flammable. Ever hear about the wildfire that covered the entire earth following the extinction of the dinosaurs? No doubt the conflagration was fuelled, at least in part, by global methane degassing.
Here's a link to a longish summary of scientific work on methane catastrophes in earth history: http://www.killerinourmidst.com/methane%20catastrophe.html
And here's a pretty comprehensive list of scientific articles regarding the end-Cretaceous extinction and associated events, like global wildfires: http://www.scn.org/~bh162/extinction_refs.html
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