X-Message-Number: 4643 Date: 18 Jul 95 11:57:55 EDT From: yvan Bozzonetti <> Subject: SCI.CRYONICS: gas hydrates lava Thomas Donaldson asks if a typical water lava is flammable in the reducing Earth atmosphere. The answer is no, but... It slowly decompose and release some flammable gas. A way to keep it stable is to work under presure. The CH4 hydrate, far more prone to decompose is stabe at 70 m deep presure ( 15 - 18 atm). This is not too costly to get but more costly than simple LN2 cryostats. I think it would be an interesting option to thaw a corpse at low temperature so that it can be repaired or scanned with an MRI system working only with liquids. It could be useful too at the experimental stage, to test the cooling dammages without a phase transition to a solid and back to liquid. Informations on gas hydrates stability can be found in : - Jeff Hecht, New Scientist, 8 July 1995, p.16 and S. Dallimore, T. Collett, Geology, vol. 23, p. 527. Yvan Bozzonetti. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4643