Permafrost on the ocean floor is currently holding the methane back. But the researchers, working from a ship off the Russian coast, say that the permafrost appears to be melting, causing methane gas to bubble to the surface. Marianne Douglas, the head of the Canadian Circumpolar Institute at the University of Alberta, said this latest research raises some important questions. "It's a time bomb because, as the permafrost thaws -- and we don't know how fast it will thaw -- it's going to slowly and maybe catastrophically at some point, release all that methane that's trapped underneath as a solid," she said….
Locations of known and inferred gas hydrate (methane clathrate) occurrences in oceanic sediments of outer continental margins and permafrost regions. US Geological Survey
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