Sinking ship

Ever feel like your on a sinking ship? Just one of those days where everything seems to be going wrong, the weather, work, writing…

Wait – I’m not here to write about exististential crises. I want to write about sinking ships. And bubbles.

An excited fish (from the movie Finding Nemo) seeing bubbles escaping for a treasure chest in an aquarium. — I have used this gif before. And I will use it again.

The Bermuda triangle seems to be one of those unresolved mysteries. In this triangle-shaped area near Florida, an unusual high number of ships have reportedly sunk to the bottom. Is it due to paranormal activity? Aliens? Magic?

It might just be due to methane bubbles – there are flatulent cows at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Just kidding. There are no cows there.

There are large areas of methane hydrates. This natural gas cause periodic methane eruption, causing bubbly regions in the ocean. And it turns out that bubbles can cause ships to sink.

Bubbles cause the average density of the water to decrease, and when this is too low (lower than that of the floating object), an object that would normally float would sink. It sounds a bit like the opposite of a fluidized bed, where a solid is turned liquid, making things float on sand.

Methane bubbles are one of the possible reasons for the mysterious disappearance of boats in the Bermuda Triangle. Though violent weather and dramatic, exaggerated reporting are probably more to blame.

However, let’s not send any cows to the bottom of the ocean, just in case.