虫子吃光了墨西哥湾泄漏的甲烷

　　根据最近公布的一项调查结果，在对墨西哥湾“深水地平线”钻井平台石油泄漏成功封堵后的调查发现微生物基本上吞噬掉了泄漏的甲烷，在四个月内把海水所含的甲烷含量降到了漏油事件前的水平。

　　Follow-up cruises in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was plugged found that microorganisms consumed all of the excess methane, reducing levels to background within about four months of the start of the spill, according to findings published recently。

　　“真是让人吃惊，”课题研究的带头人，得克萨斯大学的约翰·凯瑟勒在《科学》杂志上这样写道，“我们本来是认为仍旧有很多泄漏出来的甲烷在那里的，可事实是甲烷都消失了。”

　　“It was remarkable," said John Kessler of Texas A&M University in College Station, lead author of the study, in Science. "We had gone out there assuming that there would be plenty of methane still there and the fact was that it was all gone."

　　甲烷吞噬微生物在科学已知的微生物族群里是占比最大的。团队探测到的氧气水平只能解释为甲烷的完全的被吞噬。这样的证据证实了是微生物使得泄漏的甲烷消失的。凯瑟勒说。“对于原油泄漏来说，这消息不错”，特别是甲烷是“深水地平线”钻井平台泄漏原油的最大组成部分。

　　Methane-consuming microbes comprised the highest proportion researchers had ever seen in the overall microbial community, and the oxygen levels the team measured could only be explained by complete consumption of the methane. This evidence supported the idea that it was microbes that made the methane disappear, Kessler said."For the oil spill, it was a rather good story," he said, especially since methane was the largest component of the Deepwater Horizon spill。

　　海面以下有大量的甲烷，一种就可以含有所有陆地的化石燃料两倍的碳。比如说煤炭，石油和天然气，包括永远也不可能开采的那部分。甲烷是一种强有力的温室气体，是二氧化碳对温度升高效果的25倍。

　　There are massive amounts of undersea methane. One type alone may hold double the carbon of all of the terrestrial fossil fuel, such as coal, oil and natural gas, including stores that could never be recovered. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, contributing 25 times more toward warming than carbon dioxide, kilogram for kilogram over a century。

　　凯瑟勒表示，在地质学历史上水下的甲烷释放曾发生过，有时是喷发，有时是千万年地丝丝泄漏。并且气象学家已经表示一种大量的水下和甲烷结合的物质——像冰一样的被称为“可燃冰”，会随着大洋的变暖而变得可能融化而泄漏。

　　Underwater methane releases have occurred in geologic history, sometimes as big burps of gas and sometimes as seeps lasting hundreds or thousands of years, Kessler said. Also, climate scientists have suggested that releases of vast stores of one type of water-associated methane -- an ice-like form called methane clathrate -- could happen as warming oceans allow some of these to melt。

　　尽管团队的发现表明甲烷吞噬微生物有潜在的吞噬大量泄漏的甲烷的可能。“但是我们不可能把这条规律应用到整个世界”。

　　While the team's findings suggest that methane-chomping microorganisms have the potential to consume large quantities of released methane, "We can't generalize these findings to the greater planet," he said。