PhysOrg: Methane hydrates are a kind of ice that contains methane, and that form at certain depths under the sea or buried in permafrost. They can also form in pipelines that transport oil and gas, leading to clogging. Yet methane hydrates are nearly impossible to study because it is very hard to get samples, and the samples themselves are highly unstable in the laboratory.
A team of scientists from Norway, China and the Netherlands has now shown how the size of grains of the molecules that make up the...