PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECORDS OF INFLUENCE OF GAS HYDRATE-DERIVED METHANE ON CLIMATE OF THE LATE QUATERNARY

Gas hydrate serves as the largest reservoir in the global carbon cycle. It may release lots of methane into water column and atmosphere due to the global warming and/or sea level falling, which greatly affects climate and environment. Since Dickens et al. proposed the hypothesis that massive methane releasing from gas hydrate is one of the most important reasons of the Latest Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM) in 1995, great research effort has been focused on the evolution of gas hydrate in geological history. A series of climate fluctuations have occurred since the late Quaternary, and scientists have found paleoenvironmental records of carbon isotope negative excursions in Santa Barbara basin, Guaymas basin, Lake Baikal, Greenland Sea, Peru, East Greenland continental shelf, Papua New Guinea, and South China Sea, which are related to the gas hydrate-derived methane. In this study, we compile these records to provide valuable information for future studies of dynamic evolution of gas hydrate.