Research at Rice University bolstered a long-controversial theory that massive amounts of carbon from methane hydrate caused the Earth to warm 56 million years ago and drastically change the ecosystem. Rice scientists proposed in a new Nature Geoscience paper that hydrates collected in a narrower stability zone than today under the seafloor over millions of years were discharged rapidly as the planet warmed, much as an electrical capacitor gathers charge and releases it quickly. Credit: Guangsheng Gu/Rice University