Another Strange Desert Mystery For Monday...!

No matter how you slice it, the deserts of the world contain many, many mysteries. This article from Listverse is another!

Now this one is a little different than the others we've looked at. It involves 4 different states, and that alone is part of the mystery.

Four Corners Gas

Photo credit: Heribert

In 2003, a satellite used to measure methane found a deadly cloud of this greenhouse gas as it passed over the Four Corners in the United States. The Four Corners is the area where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet. Something was releasing a shocking amount of methane equal to 10 percent of annual emissions of methane in all of the United States. This continued for six years. Then it stopped as mysteriously as it had started.

There are nearly 40,000 wells in the area that could have been responsible for the outpouring of greenhouse gas. The purpose of these wells is to extract natural gas, which is mostly methane, from the local coal-rich environment. However, it cannot satisfactorily explain the sheer volume of the greenhouse gas found floating above the Four Corners. According to NASA, the possibility that the six-year methane event was a natural gas leak cannot be discounted. Whether it was man-made or natural, researchers are still trying to discover the origin of the methane, a gas more effective at creating global warming than carbon dioxide.

So many of the stories we look at are thrown at us by Mother Nature. She has many to share, that's for sure!

Coffee out on the patio!