There's some concern that methane hydrates could cause tsunamis - http://www.virginiap...logy/tsunami.html It's dangerous and explosive and so forth. But it's nothing new. http://science.howst.../frozen-fuel2.htm

Then, in the 1930s, natural-gas miners began to complain of an icelike material clogging pipelines exposed to cold temperatures. Scientists determined that this material was not pure ice, but ice wrapped around methane. They wasted no time trying to find ways to prevent hydrates from forming and turned primarily to chemicals, such as methanol or monoethylene glycol. Since then, mining companies have added these materials to their natural-gas pipelines to inhibit hydrate formation.

From the methane clathrates Wikipedia link:

Methane clathrates (hydrates) are also commonly formed during natural gas production operations, when liquid water is condensed in the presence of methane at high pressure. It is known that larger hydrocarbon molecules such as ethane and propane can also form hydrates, although as the molecule length increases (butanes, pentanes), they cannot fit into the water cage structure and tend to destabilise the formation of hydrates.

Once formed, hydrates can block pipeline and processing equipment. They are generally then removed by reducing the pressure, heating them, or dissolving them by chemical means (methanol is commonly used). Care must be taken to ensure that the removal of the hydrates is carefully controlled, because of the risk of massive increases in pressure as the methane is released, and the potential for the hydrate to let go with high velocity as it is exposed to a high pressure differential.

It is generally preferable to prevent hydrates from forming or blocking equipment. This is commonly achieved by removing water, or by the addition of ethylene glycol (MEG) or methanol, which act to depress the temperature at which hydrates will form (i.e. common antifreeze). In recent years, development of other forms of hydrate inhibitors have been developed, such as Kinetic Hydrate Inhibitors (which dramatically slow the rate of hydrate formation) and anti-agglomerates, which do not prevent hydrates forming, but do prevent them sticking together to block equipment.

That seems to have been what happened with the 100 ton "funnel" that was tried in the last day or so. BP seems to be flailing about rather than thinking about all of the issues involved. :-(

I was trying to make the point was that people drilling offshore have know about this stuff for ages. There are 6659 oil platforms and rigs (819 active) on the US coast in the Gulf of Mexico - http://www.cccarto.c...lf_platforms.html While all of these are not in deep water, 300m+ deep ocean drilling has been going on since the late 1960s in semi-submersible rigs ( http://en.wikipedia....ible#Applications ) like the Deepwater Horizon ( http://en.wikipedia....Deepwater_Horizon ).

If methane hydrates suddenly released their gas, that would be a very bad thing. But the folks drilling the well should have know about them if they were there. This Deepwater Horizon operation wasn't unique. Something went wrong because some procedure somewhere along the way wasn't followed or there was an equipment failure. In either case, it doesn't look good for BP and/or its contractor. It most likely wasn't some freak accident due to some never before seen event.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.