Dark Ages and the Bermuda Triangle

While browsing the local Borders Bookstore, I discovered a book that seems to have a similar theory as me: Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs. I purchased it and will relay any interesting tidbits I encounter to the few, the proud, the readers of my blog.

Also on my radar right now is the website http://www.bermudatriangle.org... it isn't a great site but it got me thinking. My favorite theory is explained in the following quote:

An explanation for some of the disappearances focuses on the presence of vast fields of methane hydrates on the continental shelves. A paper was published in 1981 by the United States Geological Survey about the appearance of hydrates in the Blake Ridge area, off the southeastern United States coast. Periodic methane eruptionsregions of frothy water that are no longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships. If this were the case, such an area forming around a ship could cause it to sink very rapidly and without warning. Laboratory experiments have proven that bubbles can, indeed, sink a scale model ship by decreasing the density of the water. This effect, however, may not scale up to actual size of the ships due to the physics involved. may produce

Some writers have suggested that methane hydrate is suddenly released in the form of giant gas bubbles, with diameters comparable to that of the ships purportedly sunk by them (see Bermuda Triangle mystery solved? It's a load of gas), though physical feasibility of this has been challenged, as even if release of large bubbles was possible, they would collapse and break up into smaller ones as they would be rising up towards the surface. However this could still reduce buoyancy to a dangerously low level, possibly sinking the ships.

Hypothetically, methane gas might also be involved in airplane crashes, as it is not as dense as air and thus would not generate as much lift required to keep the airplane flying. Furthermore, methane may interfere with functions of an altimeter in an airplane, which determines the altitude by measuring the density of the surrounding air: since methane is less dense, the altimeter would indicate that the airplane is climbing, which may cause the pilot to fly the airplane lower, crashing it. Another possibility is that methane in the engines disrupts the mix of fuel and air, possibly stopping combustion and stalling the engines. All of these effects of methane have been shown experimentally.