Correct option is B
The correct answer is (b).
Gas hydrates, also widely known as clathrates, are crystalline, ice-like structures predominantly enclosing methane (CH4) gas within a rigid lattice of water molecules.
These naturally occurring formations exist under highly specific thermodynamic conditions characterized by low temperatures and extremely high pressures, primarily found in deep oceanic sediments and permafrost regions.
Information Booster
- Methane clathrates act as an enormous potential reservoir of natural gas, vastly exceeding the known reserves of conventional fossil fuels combined.
- One cubic meter of solid gas hydrate can effectively release approximately 164 cubic meters of methane gas at standard temperature and pressure.
- The stability zone for these hydrates is highly sensitive to climatic shifts; ocean warming threatens to destabilize these structures globally.
- If sudden destabilization occurs, the massive release of methane—a potent greenhouse gas—could trigger a severe positive feedback loop exacerbating global warming.
- Gas hydrates also pose significant geohazard risks, including underwater landslides and tsunamis due to sediment destabilization on continental margins.
- Extraction of methane from hydrates is technologically challenging and currently unviable commercially due to the high risks of uncontrolled gas release.
- Submarine hydrate deposits are often marked by distinct biological communities that thrive on the localized methane seeps via chemosynthesis.
- Option A: While carbon dioxide (CO2) can form artificial hydrates under controlled conditions or in specific extraterrestrial environments, it is not the most common natural gas hydrate on Earth.
- Option C: Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a major atmospheric pollutant primarily originating from volcanic eruptions and industrial fossil fuel combustion, entirely unrelated to deep-sea clathrate formations.
- Option D: Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is an organosulfur compound commonly produced by marine phytoplankton, playing a role in cloud condensation, but it does not form clathrates.
- Understanding clathrate gun hypothesis is central to paleoclimatology, potentially explaining rapid warming events like the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
English
10 Questions
20 Marks
12 Mins
