Reports: AC846170-AC8: Absheron Allochthon: Evidence for South
Caspian Seafloor Deformation in Response to Climatically Driven
Hydrate Dissociation  Camelia C. Knapp , University of South
Carolina  Gas hydrates hydrates (also known as clathrates)
consist of a gas molecule encased in a rigid lattice of
hydrogen-bonded water molecules and have been studied from
several different perspectives including climate change (Dickens
et al., 1995, Kennett et al., 2000). The potential role of gas
hydrates in climate change is explained by Kennett et al.
(2003), who suggested that very rapid warming events during the
Quaternary were due to the massive dissociation of marine gas
hydrates rather than exhalation of methane from continental
wetlands, and asset that many submarine slumps observed
throughout the world's oceans are a product of sediment
instability caused by the dissociation of gas hydrates. While
this hypothesis is still heavily debated, several studies have
linked large submarine slumping events to the dissoci