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LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

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Byline: The Register-Guard

Methane might have exploded

Don Richey's Feb. 15 letter regarding methane gas generation caused me to think of a different perspective on global climate change.

Scientists agree that fossil fuels were created by millions of years of decomposing vegetation and animal material. We know that there are significant deposits of fossil fuels in areas of the world that now have no significant vegetation, so those areas must have, at one time, been warm and humid for extended periods of time. We also know that digestion of vegetation by animals generates methane and hydrogen sulfide gases.

Decomposition of dead vegetation creates methane gas. Both gases are volatile and rise to the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere, creating a dense barrier to heat re-radiating from the Earth's surface. This caused significant warming of the globe.

Suppose that atmospheric methane and hydrogen sulfide gas had reached a critical volume when a significant comet or meteorite blazed into Earth's atmosphere and provided the ignition source for this flammable gas. The resulting worldwide explosion would have consumed most of the oxygen in the atmosphere, causing widespread extermination of animal life, burning up the methane accumulation that kept the Earth so warm and created the condition for global cooling that created the ice age.

Human habitation and lightning-caused fires would then have added carbon dioxide to the atmosphere to start the gradual warming that ended the ice age and bringing us to where...

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