Maybe you remember my recent post “Schwanau on Ice” with walking on the frozen Lake Lauerz? I mentioned in that post that there are natural gas bubbles caught under the ice. There is a long (and dangerous!) tradition to burn that gas. That this is really dangerous shows this a short video going viral on ‘WhatsApp’ today:
Methane Gas Explosion (Source: http://www.20min.ch)
(Video: 20min-tv.ch)
Luckily, nobody was really hurt. But you can imagine that this can end badly, so don’t try that!
The gas is called ‘Faulgas‘ and is mostly Methane. When the lake is froze, it can build smaller and larger bubbles under the ice.
Usually the gas needs oxygen from the air above the ice to burn. More videos are from 2012:
Impressive, but dangerous: don’t play with gas!
Happy Methaning 🙂
wow
LikeLike
I think taking a gas BBQ out there and attaching a hose to the gas would be on the cards if this happened in Australia.
LikeLike
Cool idea, but won’t work with these gas: the amount and pressure is not high enough. And it might attach a bad taste to the BBQ as the gas is mostly produced by the sediments of the lake 😦
LikeLike
I am sure you have heard of people lighting their own human produced methane. This seems similar in that people are lighting “lake farts”.
LikeLike
yes, that’s indeed about the same, but on a larger scale 🙂
LikeLike