Abraham Lake in Alberta Attracts Photographers Eager to Witness the 'Burning Lake' (VIDEO)
Abraham Lake is gaining new attention, not just for the natural phenomenon occurring underneath the ice, but as a new potential source of energy.
Abraham Lake is an artificial lake on North Saskatchewan River in western Alberta, Canada that was created after the construction of the Bighorn Dam in 1972.
Abraham Lake is a popular destination for photographers because of a rare phenomenon where bubbles get frozen right underneath the lakes icy surface. The bubbles, however, are not due to oxygen, but rather from methane gas that is being created by decomposing organic material at the bottom of the lake.
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"The plants on the lake bed release methane gas and methane gets frozen once coming close enough to much colder lake surface and they keep stacking up below once the weather gets colder and colder during [the] winter season," Photographer Fikret Onal said of the lake.
The lake is also a potential hazard. Scientists studying methane-producing lakes in Alaska demonstrated the flammability of the gas trapped in the lake by drilling a hole in the ice and then igniting the escaping gas.
There have been many frozen methane lakes like Abraham Lake and ecologists are also worried about the effect that the escaping gas might have on the atmosphere given that methane is more effective at trapping heat and other greenhouse gases than the more commonly known carbon dioxide.
Still, methane lakes are beginning to be utilized as sources of energy, such as Lake Kivu in Rwanda where developers have begun tapping into extensive gas deposits underneath the lake to be used in the creation of electricity.
Similar techniques are being used to mine something called methane hydrate, which is a frozen and extremely concentrated form of methane, from lake and ocean floors.
