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It’s a Gas

Methane seeping from the seafloor sustains microbes that serve as the base of the food chain for communities of animals, like these tubeworms, which thrive in the sunless depths. Far more natural gas is sequestered on the seafloor or leaking from it than can be drilled from all the existing wells on Earth. (High-definition images copyright Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the BBC Natural History Unit, courtesy of the WHOI Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory and Johnson-Sea-Link submersible, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution)