Bermuda Triangle: Science of the Abyss Page #5

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of huge methane gas deposits

hidden under the seabed.

Geologist Martin pepper

has come to

a commercial diving center

in Florida

to find out if there's

any truth to this theory.

So the idea is that

methane is coming

from basically the decomposition

of all this old dead matter.

So it could be really deep

within the sediment.

And as the decomposition

happens, methane is formed,

and it basically kind of rises

its way through the sediment.

Just below the seabed,

the sediment freezes,

and as the methane molecules

rise up through this layer,

they can get trapped

inside ice crystals.

The result is

a subterranean layer

of gas-rich snow

called methane clathrate.

What it is is it's

like a water cage of ice.

And this ice cage

can actually house 170 times

the volume of gas

into this cube of ice.

Somehow, when you disrupt that,

it can cause the methane

to just boil out of it.

And as this rises

in the water column,

it'll actually lower

the density of the water

and ships sailing over that can

actually fall through that water

because of the density change,

suddenly.

In theory,

the pressure of gas built up

inside these icy deposits

could create an explosion

of methane from the seabed.

Bubble, boosh,

instant disappearance.

To investigate the theory,

Martin devised an experiment

using the closest thing

to rare methane clathrate...

dry carbon dioxide ice.

So what I need to do

is make a big gas explosion,

and to do that,

I have a two-liter bottle,

and we put some of this dry ice

in the bottle.

And the beauty is,

is once you lock this cap,

the dry ice is subliming,

so it's going straight to a gas,

and you can see that it starts

working the pressure up.

It's going to get up

to about 300 psi

before this thing

finally cannot take it.

Boom! And that's our

big bubble of methane

that we want to simulate

to see if we can sink that ship.

For safety reasons,

Martin first wants to

first test his experiment

using a half-filled bottle.

This is something

you should not try at home,

because it is very explosive,

and if you don't understand

the power of this,

it can actually take off

fingers, take out an eye.

It's very dangerous.

All right.

He pulls the bottle

to the bottom

of the ten-foot deep test area

using a weighted pulley system

and waits for

the pressure to build.

Look at that!

The whole dock jumped!

Could terrifying

gas explosions like this,

but on a much bigger scale,

really be sinking ships

in the Bermuda triangle?

That is impressive.

A significant clue lies in

the frozen wasteland of Siberia.

In 2014, reindeer herders

discovered huge holes

blasted out of the icy tundra.

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