To: "'North American Fruit Explorers'" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [NAFEX] carbon dioxide
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:11:11 -0700
To the list.
An English article describes a different danger of carbon
dioxide and methane buried deeply at Lake Kivu in Africa.
"The gases are trapped in layers 80 metres below the lake's surface
by the intense water pressures there. However, researchers have
warned that geological or volcanic events could disturb these waters
and release the gases.
"The impact would be devastating, as was demonstrated on 21 August
1986 at Lake Nyos in Cameroon, in West Africa. Its waters were
saturated with carbon dioxide and a major disturbance - most probably
a landslide - caused a huge cloud of carbon dioxide to bubble up from
its depths and to pour down the valleys that lead from the crater lake.
"Carbon dioxide is denser than air, so that the 50mph cloud hugged
the ground and smothered everything in its path. Some 1,700 people
were suffocated."