Frozen Bubble Seeps
This image captures a scene that occurs throughout the Arctic regions of the world; frozen bubble chains.
This photo was taken in one of the lakes in Bering Land Bridge National Reserve. In these arctic lakes, organic matter from plants and animals that live during the summer sinks to the bottom and decays, gradually producing methane that seeps out of the sediments.
As the fall turns to winter, bubbles of methane rise up and intersect the downward growing ice, leading to these vertical trails. Several larger bubbles appear as well. The bubbles are largely filled with methane – when these lakes thaw in the spring, that methane is released to the air and there’s probably a brief time when the air right above each of these lakes is explosive. Don’t start a fire when these lakes are thawing.
-JBB
Image credit: Bering Land Bridge National Reserve (creative commons license) http://www.flickr.com/photos/bering_land_bridge/8289044534/
