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The key to the puzzle would come from a totally unexpected quarter.
解謎的密鑰來自一個出人意料的地方。
Gerry Dickens is a geologist working on new sources of energy.
Gerry Dickens是一位研究能源開采的地質(zhì)學(xué)家。
He had no special interest in the Permian extinction,
他對二疊紀(jì)生物大滅絕沒有太大興趣，
but one evening, sitting in a bar, he ran into a friend.
一天晚上他在酒吧里遇到了一位朋友。
We were just sort of chatting about what we were working on for the summer,
我們談?wù)撝覀冋麄€夏天都在忙些什么，
and he was telling me that he was working on trying to understand how you could get massive of 12 carbon quickly
他告訴我，他正在研究碳-12的數(shù)量為什么會迅速增長，
because some signatures had been found in the rock records,
因為巖石記錄中出現(xiàn)了這些標(biāo)記，
and it was very difficult to explain, it didn't make any sense.
這很難解釋，他感到莫名其妙。
Dickens was curious. Several years earlier, he'd spent time on a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico,
Dickens對此很好奇。多年前他曾去過墨西哥灣的一個鉆井平臺，
prospecting for a new source of energy called methane hydrate.
勘測一種新型能源叫做甲烷水合物。
It's a gas frozen in huge reservoirs just below the seabed.
這是一種大量封凍在海底的氣體。
Dickens knew this methane contained massive quantities of carbon 12.
Dickens知道這些甲烷含有大量碳-12。
He also knew there were dozens of these methane hydrate reservoirs scattered around the world's coasts.
他也知道全世界沿岸地區(qū)都分布著這些甲烷水合物儲層。
We find 'em for instance along the coast of south America, along central America,
我們可以在這些地方找到它們：南美洲，中美洲沿岸，
all along the western coast of the US and Canada, indications round Australia, Indonesia,
美國西海岸，加拿大沿岸，澳大利亞沿岸，印度尼西亞沿岸，
essentially anywhere along continental margins where you get a lot of organic matter that decays at the bottom and produces methane.
實際上所有大陸架邊緣地帶的海底都有大量腐爛的有機物在釋放甲烷。
