By Digital Journal From Business Insider

Scientists may have solved an enduring mystery that has plagued us since records began in 1851.

Scientists believe methane gas explosions may be linked to the mystery of the disappearance of as many as 8,127 people in the Bermuda Triangle.

The mythical stretch of ocean, roughly encompassing Puerto Rico, the island of Bermuda, and Miami, has been called the Devil’s Triangle and, more commonly, the Bermuda Triangle.

For the past 165 years, according to the International Business Times, numerous ships and airplanes have disappeared in the area, usually under mysterious circumstances, taking more than 8,000 lives. But new research from scientists at Arctic University in Norway suggests that multiple giant craters on the floor of the Barents Sea may help to explain what’s going on in the Bermuda Triangle.

The craters surrounding the seabed on the coast of Norway mark areas where massive deposits of methane gas may have exploded. The study of these craters, some of which are actually chasms 150-feet deep and a half-mile wide, suggests they could have been caused by gas leaking from oil and gas deposits buried deep in the sea floor.

In the past two years, scientists have documented methane gas bubbling up from the sea floor off the coasts of Washington state and Oregon, as well as off the east coast of the United States. And in the frozen stretches of Siberia last year, scientists discovered four new holes, bringing the number to seven craters that have formed after an eruption of methane gas, according to Digital Journal.

Further details on the discovery will be released next month at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union, to be held in Vienna on April 17-22. One of the topics to be discussed will be whether methane gas explosions on the seabed could threaten the safety of ships. Scientists now have radar capable of giving them detailed images of the seabed, showing areas of methane gas seepage around the world.

ShipwreckREUTERS/Antonio Bronic

“Multiple giant craters exist on the sea floor in an area in the west-central Barents Sea … and are probably a cause of enormous blowouts of gas,” researchers at the Arctic University of Norway said. “The crater area is likely to represent one of the largest hotspots for shallow marine methane release in the Arctic.”

Applying the Barents Sea study to the Bermuda Triangle
This is not the fist time the possibility of methane gas eruptions in the Bermuda Triangle has been suggested. Last year a group of researchers led by Igor Yelstov of the Trofimuk Institute in Russia said the mysterious disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle were the effects of hydrant gas reactions.

Yelstov told The Sunday Times that when the craters start to actively decompose, methane ice is transformed into gas. He said the process happens the same way that avalanches occur and are almost like a nuclear reaction that produces huge amounts of gas.

If the theory of methane gas explosions being the cause of so many disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle proves to be correct, then we can chalk one up for science. But would the theory explain the magnetic anomalies associated with the area? It will be interesting to hear what is decided at the meeting in April.

Read the original article on Digital Journal: http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/will-methane-gas-explosions-explain-the-bermuda-triangle-mystery/article/460125 Copyright 2016. Follow Digital Journal on Twitter.

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