On 5 December 1945, five Avenger torpedo bombersof the US Navy took off from Fort Lauderdaleon a routine training flight over the Atlantic. They did not return. A large Marinerflying boatsent to search for the missing aircraft also failed to return. No trace has ever been found of the six planes or the 27 crew members. As a result of this incident, it was discovered that quite a few ships and aircraft had also been lost, apparently without explanation in the triangular area off the south-east coast of the United States bounded by Bermuda, Puerto-Ricoand Florida. Explanations for these disappearances were put forward: now the work of Dr Richard McIver offers the best, most scientifically credible, explanation of the mystery surrounding the Bermuda Triangle - methane hydrate.

Methane hydrate was first encountered in the 1920s and 1930s in the early days of the American and Soviet gas industries. Natural gases (a mixture of flammable gases found in the Earth's crust, methane, ethane, butane and propane) were being piped across the Atlantic but occasionally the pipes would become mysteriously plugged up. The cause of this was thought to be ice, but was actually found to be a new substance - hydrate. All gases except for helium, hydrogenand neoncan form hydrates if enough gas and water are present, if the pressure is high enough and if the temperature is low enough. These conditions can be found naturally occurring on earth, and methane hydrate has been found to exist in huge quantities in many parts of the sea floor and is concentrated in some places on continental slopes. The structure of methane hydrate allows a large amount of gas to be 'captured'; if this were to dissociate, then even a small area could cause a large gas release. Sedimentpiles on continental slopes such as in the Bermuda Triangle, can ' slump' - such slumps are known to be happening today. Sediment from river mouths piles up on the slopes of the edge of continental plates, but is unstable and can tumble down. When this happens, it can cause the removal of the hydrate layer, releasing the methane gas trapped below.

Methane gas bubbling up through the sea will cause an area of decreased density; ships will lie lower in the water and will be swamped by the least wave; also methane gas when mixed with air in the correct proportions is highly explosive. This could account for the mysterious disappearances of both ships and aircraft. Why has no trace of them ever been found? All this activity on the sea bed occurs at the edges of tectonic plates, where there is constant activity as a result of the pressures beneath the earth's crust; any wreckage sinking to the bottom would be lost beneath the moving plates. This is the best theory to date of the Bermuda Triangle mystery; the fact that such large gas blow outs occur not only in this area but also in the Caspian Sea, and indeed around all the continents gives great credence to this theory.

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