The Four Corners area (shown in orange and red) is a major U.S. hot spot for methane emissions -- the result of coalbed methane extraction processes. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Michigan)
SAN JUAN, N.M., Oct. 10 (UPI) -- According to U.S. emissions data, gathered by satellite instruments and analyzed by researchers at the University of Michigan, a massive amount of methane gas is being released from a small portion of the Southwest -- a hot spot much denser and more productive than anywhere else in the country.
The hot spot spans out over some 2,500 square miles just west of the Southwest's Four Corners -- the intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Scientists gathered the emissions data using the European Space Agency's Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY) instrument.
The hot spot isn't an anomaly; it was confirmed by ground readings and was present during the entirety of the decade's worth of satellite data gathered and analyzed by the research team. It's also not a natural phenomenon, but the product of a concentration of natural gas production. Natural gas is more than 95 percent methane.
But because the data, gathered between 2002 and 2012, mostly predated the widespread adoption of hydraulic fracturing practices, researchers say methane leaks in the Four Corners region were a result of coalbed methane production in the region.
Trapped in pores and cracks of coal deposits, methane -- the colorless, odorless gas -- is responsible for many deadly mine explosions. In recent decades, oil and gas companies have developed techniques to extract methane from coal, and New Mexico's San Juan Basin boasts more coalbed methane extraction than anywhere else in the country.
"The results are indicative that emissions from established fossil fuel harvesting techniques are greater than inventoried," lead study author Eric Kort, a researcher at the University of Michigan, said in a press release. "There's been so much attention on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, but we need to consider the industry as a whole."
Though not as abundant as carbon dioxide, and thus not the greenhouse gas that garners the most attention, methane is nonetheless largely implicated in the problem of global warming -- as it is supremely efficient at trapping heat in the atmosphere. The Obama Administration announced new policies this spring for monitoring and curtailing methane emissions.
