This Ethiopian Volcano Just Burped a Staggering Amount of Methane

There’s something odd happening under an Ethiopian national park. Volcanic and seismic activity were on the rise under a volcano named Mount Fentale, but the gas that began spouting out of the ground wasn’t what you’d expect from an impending eruption. Canadian greenhouse gas monitoring company GHGSat said in early February that the amount of methane being emitted from Mount Fentale is “substantial.” When GHGSat began measuring the emissions on January 31, they found that the volcano was spewing out 58 metric tonnes of methane every hour. GHGSat began monitoring the situation after receiving a tip from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus program, which operates a number of observation satellites orbiting Earth. John Stix, a geology professor at McGill University, told New Scientist that the amount of methane is “unusual” for volcanoes, which typically spew out other gases, such as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. While carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas contributing t ... Read full article.