Volcanic Methane

Kilauea Hawaii, molten olivine causing methane flares. Hawaii is known for it's active volcanism, pillow lava, and olivine pools.

Of course, Hawaii is not the only place that has volcanic methane: Scientists Discover Possible Titan Volcano.

A recent flyby of Saturn's hazy moon Titan by the Cassini spacecraft has revealed evidence of a possible volcano, which could be a source of methane in Titan's atmosphere.

Images taken in infrared light show a circular feature roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) in diameter that does not resemble any features seen on Saturn's other icy moons. Scientists interpret the feature as an "ice volcano," a dome formed by upwelling icy plumes that release methane into Titan's atmosphere. The findings appear in the June 9 issue of Nature.

"Before Cassini-Huygens, the most widely accepted explanation for the presence of methane in Titan's atmosphere was the presence of a methane-rich hydrocarbon ocean," said Dr. Christophe Sotin, distinguished visiting scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"The suite of instruments onboard Cassini and the observations at the Huygens landing site reveal that a global ocean is not present," said Sotin, a team member of the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument and professor at the Université de Nantes, France.

"Interpreting this feature as a cryovolcano provides an alternative explanation for the presence of methane in Titan's atmosphere. Such an interpretation is supported by models of Titan's evolution," Sotin said.

Titan's volcano may release methane.

A team of European and US scientists, using Cassini-Huygens data, have found that Saturn’s smoggy moon Titan may have volcanoes that release methane into the atmosphere.

These findings may lead scientists to revise the theories that methane in Titan’s atmosphere is mainly due to the presence of a methane-rich hydrocarbon ocean.

Infrared images taken by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on board the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini orbiter, show a bright, 30-kilometre-wide structure. This structure, imaged during the first Titan fly-by on 26 October 2004 from a distance of 1200 kilometres, could be interpreted as a volcanic dome formed by upwelling plumes of icy material that rose to the planet's surface. While melting, the icy material contaminated by hydrocarbons would release methane gas.

Titan’s surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth.

Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.

The new findings from the study led by Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, USA, are reported in the 29 January 2008 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters.

Here is absolutely amazing video of the Huygens Probe landing on Titan featuring "methane rain" and "a type of hydrocarbon mixture that has never been produced in the laboratory."



Scientists have known hydrocarbons have a volcanic origin since the time of Von Humboldt (1804).

BBC On Titan's Cryo-Volcanoes.