How Methane Gas is Responsible for Increasing Earthquakes

This chapter of my book, Fever Rising, examines how I believe increasing seismic activity is caused by escalating methane levels in our atmosphere. There has been a huge increase in smaller earthquakes all around the world over the past 5 years and it all comes down to a warming planet and through this thread I will show you how.

This is Chapter 11: The Dangerous Gas Theory and Earthquakes. Here are the first 10 chapters in a series of threads.

The Mystery of the Clintonville Booms
The Jumping Jack Flash Hypothesis
The Rise of Deadly Methane Gas
The Truth about Atmospheric Methane
Methane and Fracking, part 1
Methane and Fracking, part 2
What is Hydrogen Sulfide?
Hydrogen Sulfide's Role in Global Warming
Natural Forces at Work

Chapter 11: The Dangerous Gas Theory and Earthquakes

Many earthquake experts argue that global seismic activity has been normal, but I argue on the contrary. In the month of December, 2012, I argued that earthquakes were on the rise. Charts and graphs were shown by the experts on Above Top Secret proving they were correct. They showed that 5.0 and above earthquakes weren’t on the rise, but it’s the little tremblers of less than 5.0 that I implied in my arguments.

Then again in January of 2013 I contended they were on the rise and yet again, the experts told me no, “nothing to see here, move along please.” Soon after in the last couple of weeks of January some quake swarms finally garnered some attention, especially one that was raging away in the Solomon Islands area of the South Pacific. Next, in early February, an 8.0 struck and caused a small 3 foot tsunami that claimed a handful of lives and destroyed homes and businesses along the coasts of the islands.

It wasn’t the 8.0 that surprised anyone. They are fairly common in this part of the world. It was the large quakes that preceded and followed the 8.0. Dozens of quakes above 5.0, and in that 7 day period preceding the big quake, the largest one of 2013 to that date, the USGS reported that there were 99 quakes at 5.0 or above.

On the Quake Watch 2013 thread at AboveTopSecret.com, the forum website where I gathered much of this information, one of the experts said (prior to this active week) to call him when there were 60 or more 5.0’s in a single week. He said that he would then worry about increased seismic activity. Well, I believe that 99 in a single week is a pretty big increase, wouldn’t you say?

Did he worry about it? I don’t know, but I’ve been watching intently over the past two years all the small quakes, especially the ones in unusual places where they shouldn’t be materializing. I believe they have everything to do with the rapid heating of the atmosphere that I have presented in this theory.

First of all, earthquakes are on the rise. There is a graph, jumpingjackflashhypothesis.blogspot.com... from the Jumping Jack Flash Website, where Jonny Mnemonic shows the increase beginning after 2007 and climbing rapidly in 2009 and 2010. This increase that began in 2007 is just as I have theorized in this book about the strange phenomenon and how so many of these events began at this time, just after we saw the methane levels in the atmosphere begin their increase.

We’ve already discussed the possible causes of this chain reaction that began back in 2005-06 in a previous chapter. Now the big question remains; how are the earthquakes related to dangerous gases. There is a theory proposed a few years back in a book by James McGuire entitled Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes, where the author states that the melting ice at the poles relieves pressure on the earth’s continental plates. The slightest pressure change will cause tectonic movement resulting in earthquakes. Basically, as the atmosphere heats up we experience rapid thawing of Arctic ice from both sea and land (permafrost). As the ice retreats, all that weight relieves pressure on the Earth’s crust which would naturally cause it to adjust.

According to an article on NPR.org the summer of 2012 saw the most dramatic ice melt in several thousand years. It literally smashed records. Of course there is always melt in the summer time, about half the ice, but the article points out three quarters of the ice melted. The previous record for ice melt was in 2007, also within the time frame of the rapid methane increase in the atmosphere. The additional ice melt in 2013 was the size of Texas. That’s a lot of ice and a lot of weight on the continental plates.

From NPR.org, September 11, 2012
This melting trend is accelerating because the ice in the Arctic is getting thinner as the region warms. A few decades ago, lots of ice in the Arctic was 10 feet thick and would clump up as wind pushed it around the northern coastlines.

"That ice used to survive and stir around in the Arctic for decades and create a very thick mass that could survive a few warm summers," Scambos says. "We don't get that anymore. We get persistently warm summers that have gradually eroded the ice cover until it's very, very thin and not stable."

As the ice retreats relieving pressure on those plates, it causes the water levels to rise, which is another point of pressure on the Earth’s crust. Keep in mind that the plates underneath the oceans are more fragile than land-based plates. Taking that into consideration, you can see that it’s not going to take much extra mass to cause seismic instability. Every square mile of water that is one meter deep is nearly 6 billion pounds. Sure, the waters haven’t risen that much, but consider any additional height is going to add billions of pounds of extra mass into the oceans and the level of the water rising isn’t going to be the same throughout the globe. Some areas are going to experience more sea level rise than others. That’s more pressure on certain areas which would heighten the seismic activity.

JumpingJackFlashHypothesis.blogspot.com
By Jonny Mnemonic
Think about your average volcano sticking out of the ocean. It may have 100 square miles (10x10 miles) where added mass could have some effect. So if the sea level around that volcano is increased by one meter then the amount of newly-introduced weight affecting that volcano is 570 billion pounds. If it was 99% of the way to blowing its top already then that might just be plenty to push it over the edge. The same is true of faults, except their area is often much larger.

Continued...

Are the sea levels really rising? Yes, according to the climate experts, predicting that by the end of this century the sea level will rise 80 centimeters, or 2.6 feet. This is nearly that one meter we were talking about a minute ago that’s going to add nearly 6 billion pounds of weight to the Earth’s crust per every square mile. How can this kind of weight not have an effect on the plates underneath the oceans?

Some of these climatologists actually believe that it could rise to two meters instead of one. Beyond the unimaginable devastation that a two meter rise would do to the coastal cities around the planet, earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis would make these places uninhabitable. We would be faced with an entirely different world than the one we know. Consider that half of the world’s population lives within 62 miles of a coast.

I believe that these experts are being generous by giving us till the end of the century. As I’ve discussed in an earlier chapter, this threat is here and now. The increasing anomalies are now and I don’t think the public is being given accurate numbers. Earthquakes have risen each year since 2009 at an alarming rate.

The rise in sea level has the potential to affect some places more than others according to the Scientific American. An article published September 10, 2012 states that in some places, such as California, the impact of the rising waters will be different in the south than in the north, as well as Oregon and Washington. The article pointed out that the ocean plate is descending below North America at the Cascadia subduction zone, which runs from northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, to Northern California. The article said the land there is rising as seismic strain builds, making sea level rise less.

From the Scientific American, September 10, 2012
It's likely not permanent, however. An earthquake with a magnitude of 8 or higher would stop the land from rising and also likely would bring about additional sea-level growth of 1 to 2 meters (3.3 to 6.6 feet) in the area, he said.

"This could be a great game changer as far as sea-level rise," Cayan said. It would be "instantaneous sea-level rise of the sort Japan saw a year ago" after its magnitude-9 temblor.

I predict we’ll undergo even more earthquakes and major earthquakes that ravaged the Solomon Islands in the first week of February, 2013 are going to become the norm. We’ve already entered a dangerous chain reaction of more methane release, causing more warmer atmospheric temperatures, causing more Arctic ice melt, causing more rising sea levels, causing more earthquakes and volcanoes, which, in turn, cause more methane release and round and round we go.

Let’s get back to the argument about whether earthquakes really are on the rise. Some argue that they really aren’t, we are just seeing things more clearly due to better reporting, the widespread use of the internet and all that garbage. I beg to differ. I don’t need graphs and stats to know that there is an alarming trend of small temblors all over the United States in highly unusual places. There are constant swarms of small quakes somewhere on the globe each and every day. As far as the large mega-quakes, no, they may not be on the rise…yet!

Most of my theory about the dangerous gases comes from the Jumping Jack Flash Hypothesis proposed by Jonny Mnemonic. When he initially set out to investigate his suspicions about the methane and hydrogen sulfide dangers, it was earthquakes that had originally caught his attention. Here is what he had to say about how he first hypothesized the methane and hydrogen sulfide gases. It has everything to do with earthquakes.

Jonny was asked what he thought created the shake up to get this reaction started and what brought his attention to these events.

By Jonny Mnemonic
‘They’ aren’t just hiding this secret from us. This is one of several interlocking secrets. I call it the House of Hidden Truths. Once I started figuring things out, I was able to see a great way inside that house, walk the corridors, and examine the hidden things. I wanted to wake people up with one of the other hidden truths, but ‘they’ have that one very well guarded. I fought the battles, came armed with information and science, and I was able to muscle my way through the front door of the secret I wanted to reveal first, but then I was tossed back out, a couple of ripples and then it was like the whole effort was rendered irrelevant.

So I looked ahead and saw this methane hydrate and hydrogen sulfide event. I looked around that room and…ghost town, sagebrush blowing through, no guards there. I think they even hid this from their own agents of deception they employed to hide the other truths. Compartmentalization, that’s how they work. I would have done the same thing myself. But that made it easy for me to simply plant my flag there, snatch this secret out of the House of Hidden Truths and make it mine. By the time they realized what I’d done, it was too late. They came at me, but I fought them off, and they got weaker and I got stronger. Eventually they just faded away (which was a shame, because I liked the battles; they’d find weaknesses in my arguments or science, and then I simply corrected any errors and at the end of the day, they helped me by arguing with me.)
So, back to the original question, what began it all, what got me on the trail of this mystery in the first place? It was first the rising earthquakes, the scale I made. (the graph above)

That shows US quakes rising in an escalating curve. But then I looked closely at USGS and saw that in 2005 they stopped counting 2.5 or less quakes globally. Odd thing to do. Makes it hard to compare years, apples and oranges. And why do that at all? We aren’t using 8-bit computers that can’t count high enough for the number of quakes. And then in 2009 they stopped counting quakes globally that were 4.5 or below, which is about 2/3 of ALL quakes. Why do that in the first place, and why raise it? It was because the quake counts were getting alarming, so to make it LOOK more normal, at least globally, they simply stopped counting 2/3 of the quakes that were occurring. Tada, everything is normal, go back to sleep, folks!
That told me the government itself was hiding something, and whatever it was, it was huge, planet-shaking (literally and metaphorically).

Once again, are quakes really on the rise? It used to be that the earth averaged a 6.0 quake or higher every few days, or about 120 per year. We’re averaging multiple 6.0’s every day now. Here is a graph that shows the counts per year for 6.0’s or higher up to 2010.



Notice on the chart above how the big jump happened from 2006 to 2007, which correlates with my dangerous gas theory. Methane levels started rising in 2007 as did all the other strange events we are experiencing now, such as the drug-resistant bacteria and mutating viruses which will be discussed in an upcoming chapter.

Continued...

Why the rise in earthquakes? Methane increase in the atmosphere is trapping heat, which it does at 25 times the rate of carbon dioxide. That extra heat is causing Arctic ice to melt, which, when tons of ice retreats it relieves pressure on the tectonic plates below and at the same time, the extra water that was ice adds to sea level rise which then causes tons of extra weight to be placed on those much more fragile plates under the sea, again causing pressure on the tectonic plates, in both cases, causing an increase in seismic activity.

According to McGuire’s theory, there may be some evidence to this in the past when our last Ice Age ended, large ice sheets covering much of the planet retreated. They were so heavy that the resulting release of pressure on the earth’s crust caused it to ‘bounce back’ triggering earthquakes, tremors, and even volcanic activity.

Jonny at jumpingjackflashhypothesis.blogspot.com also presents his own theory similar to McGuire’s, which he calls Mass-Induced Seismic Amplification (MISA) Theory. Jonny presented this in December of 2010 as he first stumbled upon the issue of methane and hydrogen sulfide gases. I will let him explain it here in his own words.

From allvoices.com/contributed-news/7715724-cataclysmic-earthquakes-and-volcanoes-are-coming
Jonny Mnemonic, Dec. 25, 2010
I see a different problem than the ones most people are talking about these days - possibly catastrophic. I came up with a theory a few years ago based on the principle of reservoir-induced seismicity. Because all theories should be predictive, I made this prediction: the world would see an increasing number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. As predictions go, that looks dead-on - according to usgs.gov, the number of earthquakes in the U.S. has increased by roughly 90% over 2009 and about 120% over 2008. In other words, the rate of increase is itself increasing, the curve looking rather hyperbolic if you chart the data in Excel, which I have done for you, above.

Going back to 1990 there were NO years where we had 4000+ quakes in the States...until 2009, when we had 4264. I thought about posting this last year, but since the new 'top' in 2009 wasn't THAT much higher than the previous one, I decided to wait for better confirmation, so as not to be alarmist. I was still hoping I was wrong at that point. This year we are rapidly closing in on 8000 quakes, though I doubt we will get there before Jan 1. That is truly a frightening spike. I predicted it, I was expecting an increase, but...wow, not like that. It's unquestionably time to be alarmed now.

Basically, I proposed a simple concept: that a gram of water in a dam's reservoir weighs the same as a gram of water off the coast of Japan (or California, or Indonesia, whatever), and if weight in a dam's reservoir can cause earthquakes (and clearly they can and sometimes do), then introducing extra mass to new areas globally would increase seismic instability globally.
Where is all the extra mass coming from? Well, most of it, obviously, from melted ice, quadrillions of tons. The entire planet looks different from orbit now compared to what it once looked like. Now, I'm not saying some extra water mass can make a completely geologically inactive area do anything. But a LOT of volcanoes and tectonics just need a little extra pressure to blow. Also, most of the ice is melting away from thick continental plates and is ending up in the oceans, where the plates are much thinner and therefore more sensitive.

The oceans are the planet's reservoir. The vast amounts of ice that are melting off the land are filling up that reservoir. Essentially, MISA Theory is very similar to the concept behind Reservoir-Induced Seismicity, but on a global scale and with three differences: 1) nobody did a geological survey of the reservoir area to make sure that the added mass wouldn't cause problems, as is always done with dams; 2) the plates under the oceans are far more fragile than those beneath any land-based reservoir; and 3) this reservoir cannot be drained to relieve pressure.

POSTULATE ONE: The global mass redistribution that is occurring is the proximate (direct) cause of the increase in seismic activity being experienced across the world.

If you extrapolate the numbers and just go with the last year's rate of increase in quakes in the U.S., then by 2020 we'd be experiencing more than 1 million quakes per year instead of the more normal 3500-ish. Not a huge number of giant quakes, mostly greatly increased numbers of small-to-medium quakes. But globally big quakes are also up, about 25%. If that rate also kept increasing then we'd go from around 12-15 big quakes per year globally now to more like 150 or so per year by 2020.

Clearly, we must hope and pray that that curve levels off very soon. Unfortunately there is no reason to expect that it will. It will probably get worse. But who can know? I do know this: bell curves rule the universe and that looks like the beginning of a bell curve to me, one with a terrifyingly steep upslope. Danger, Will Robinson!

Volcanic activity is way up this year too, presumably for the same reason: they're being squeezed around the edges by newly introduced - and relentlessly increasing - water mass and the ones closest to eruption are popping like giant magma-spewing zits. As more mass flows to the oceans, I expect this to get increasingly worse. Or better, if you like volcanic eruptions.

Here's a factoid: each square mile of water that is one meter deep weighs 5,709,917,475 pounds. Not quite 6 billion pounds. Now you're thinking, well, we don't have one meter of sea level rise yet. That's true. But realize, sea level rise is not the same from area to area. Some areas have higher amounts than the average, some lower. It's possible that we're creeping up on that amount in some areas already. In any case, the process is ongoing, the mass flowing in continuously, month after month, year after year.

Think about your average volcano sticking out of the ocean. It may have 100 square miles (10x10 miles) where added mass could have some effect. So if the sea level around that volcano is increased by one meter then the amount of newly-introduced weight affecting that volcano is 570 billion pounds. If it was 99% of the way to blowing its top already then that might just be plenty to push it over the edge. The same is true of faults, except their area is often much larger.
POSTULATE TWO: All faults and volcanoes have tipping points. The more mass that is added to the oceans, the more of those tipping points we will reach, and the more seismic activity we will experience, particularly in the oceans and near coastal areas. This is happening now.

That's all there is to it. Two short and sweet postulates. My fear is that my theory is, in fact, correct. That was certainly an accurate prediction. Worse, I fear the possibility that the escalation continues. Just a few years of escalation like this past years and that alone could cause some serious problems with maintaining the civilization we have. If things start getting knocked down faster than we can repair them, then we're screwed.

Avoidance of the problem is out - it's happening now. Effective mitigation will be extraordinarily difficult. Yet we must try everything. Other than that, we will have only adaptation and suffering.

Continued...

It’s a fact that the planet is shaking tremendously, escalating over the past several years. In April of 2012 we experienced a series of 39 quakes around the planet in less than 48 hours all beginning with two major quakes, an 8.6 and an 8.2 on the Richter scale, in Indonesia. These major quakes were followed by three slightly smaller quakes in Mexico just a few hours later.

An expert from Romania’s National Institute of Earth Physics, Gheorghe Marmureanu, said in a news release that he believed something is seriously wrong. “There have been too many strong earthquakes. The quakes are a surprise that cannot be easily explained by current scientific knowledge. With the Indonesian quake for example, statistically, there should be one big earthquake in this part of Asia every 500 years. However, since 2004, there were already three quakes with a magnitude of over 8, which is not normal.”

The planet is undergoing some serious earth crust shifting. I believe that McGuire’s theory about the melting permafrost from Siberia and Greenland adding pressure on the crust is certainly at play in many of the strange earthquakes that are happening in places that they shouldn’t be. It may also be playing a role in other phenomenon.

On March 3, 2013, a foul odor came in from the ocean settling over Santa Monica, California. After some tests were done, officials declared that methane was in the water and that it was probably the cause of the odor. They said they believed that a large release of methane occurred out in the ocean. There was also a 4.3 earthquake in the area prior to the odor. This was most likely the cause of the release of gas, and by the way, it was more likely hydrogen sulfide that caused the odor because methane is odorless. Both gases were probably released at the same time from a shifting of the plates caused by the earthquake. As the Arctic ice and permafrost melt (as it did in great numbers over the winter of 2011-12) we’re seeing a lot of imbalance on the crust of the earth.

This large plume of hydrogen sulfide and methane gas that covered Santa Monica was most likely caused by a shift in the tectonic plate. Something very similar is probably happening off the coasts of Florida as well, but Florida doesn’t have plates, yet they sit on the earth’s crust and shifting is possible. The same day these events were happening in California, reports of earth shaking came in up and down the Gulf coast from Port Charlotte to Naples, Florida. There were also some reports of a loud boom. The shaking wasn’t consistent throughout the whole region but reported in several areas as a shaking that lasted up to minute on some occasions. Also, some didn’t report any booms. The local news said the cause was most likely a sonic boom from an Air Force Base in the Keys doing some training out on the Gulf.

The shaking happened on the same day that a second sinkhole was reported in Seffner, FL where the guy died in his bedroom from a sinkhole a couple days prior. Later, a third sinkhole was reported in Pinellas County which is on the other side of the bay from Seffner. All these events are happening along the coasts, same as the sinkhole in Louisiana. The earth’s crust is moving all over the place and at the same time is causing fractures releasing large plumes of gas, creating sinkholes and causing earthquakes in places they shouldn’t be.

At any rate, the USGS reported no activity in Florida, but, I’m not buying it. I believe that we’ve been experiencing a lot of earth crust movement and it’s causing all these problems we’re dealing with. I think it’s been happening for a while and it’s only getting worse, that’s why we’re noticing things now. It was probably plate movement that originally caused the salt caverns to collapse in the first place causing the Bayou Corne sinkhole. There were hundreds of tremors down there just days before the sinkhole and plenty more since as well as methane bubbles proceeding in the area of the large sinkhole in people’s yards, swamps and lakes.

I wonder if this might affect the "Great Lakes" as well? I see no reason why it would not actually now I don't feel so safe living over 1000 miles from the Ocean.

S&F for your kindness in sharing your book with us.
Regards, Iwinder

a reply to: Iwinder

Thanks for sharing this Rez. SnF for you. I've been hesitant to read this because I knew it would confirm my fears but I had to show my support. Yes, it all related:

shaking
melting
freezing
viruses
disease
powerful storms
volcanic eruptions
and on and on...

a reply to: Rezlooper

I wonder how much time is really left....?

2.9 quake shakes Chicago area. Where it hit, people reported hearing loud booms like thunder. People also reported feeling the shake as far away as Madison, Wis.

2.9m shakes Chicago area