Lakes are often idyllic places in the midst of natural surroundings, but, like everything in life, they have a dark side, and certain lakes can become death traps. And this is due to a geological phenomenon that has to do ... with sparkling water.
Some drinks contain bubbles, which can appear due to the action of microorganisms that, in addition to fermenting and producing alcohol, continue to breathe and produce carbon dioxide that remains in the drink. This is what happens in beer, champagne or sparkling wine. There is also naturally carbonated water that springs from certain springs and thermal waters where, due to the minerals in the area and the pH of the water, the gas is produced spontaneously and saturates the water, such as the Selters spring in Germany. . Other springs where water is naturally carbonated are Vichy or Vichy Catalán in Caldes de Malavella (Girona). Due to the scarcity and rarity of these springs, since ancient times, attempts have been made to carbonate water artificially. The chemist Joseph Priestley in the eighteenth century discovered a method for carbonating water, thus inventing sparkling water, although he left it as a curiosity and saw no commercial interest. It was the Swedish Torbern Bergman who developed the industrial method in the same century, which made it unnecessary to go to any spring to appreciate the tickling in the nose of many drinks.
Drinking sparkling water is not a health problem, beyond the discomfort of filling the digestive tract with gas. The amounts of carbonic acid or bicarbonate ingested are not enough to alter the physiological pH, so sparkling water is safe when you drink it. However, there are exceptions, and they have nothing to do with the beverage industry, as one of the greatest natural disasters in recent history was due to an explosion of sparkling water.
It happened on August 21, 1986 at Lake Nyos in Cameroon. The lake is formed by the accumulation of rainwater above the crater of a volcano. The volcano is not fully active, but continues to emit gases. The lower water layer, colder than the upper one, accumulated carbon dioxide from the boiler emanations for a long time, while the warmer upper water layer hardly accumulated gas since it was evaporated freely. This formed what is called a metastable state due to gas supersaturation of the bottom layer. A metastable state is like leaving a marble on top of a sphere. With a little skill you can make the marble stand still, but the slightest disturbance will make it roll down. The lake seemed calm, but it was a potential bomb. And precisely that happened that day in August when a simple landslide burst the system and had the same effect as when you shake a bottle of soda and then open the cap: a monumental explosion of sparkling water. Here the consequences were much more serious. Carbon dioxide is denser than air and, if there is a large amount, it does not evaporate freely, but remains at ground level, so the millions of tons of gas released moved down the mountain and flooded the valley. , killing more than 1,800 people by suffocation and killing livestock in 25 kilometers around.
After this tragedy, the geological services began to monitor all the lakes and look for gas deposits that could turn any lake into an explosive. In Spain we have one under close surveillance, the Corta Guadiana, in Puebla de Guzmán (Huelva). However, experts point out that, unlike what happened in Cameroon, where the lake was higher than the population, this lake is located at a lower height and the cloud would not exceed the walls of the well. It could only be a danger to the people who were walking along its shore at that time. By the way, this problem could be avoided with a simple pipeline that, like a siphon, would gradually relieve the gas. —Eps
The Bermuda Triangle
A similar phenomenon could occur in the sea due to methane deposits. If a boat were to appear in the immediate vicinity of a methane bag, the water would decrease its density and minimize surface tension, making it impossible for a boat to float, thus ending up at the bottom of the sea. It would literally be absorbed. One of these outcrops was discovered in 1981 by the American Geological Survey within the Bermuda Triangle, where, data in hand, no more ships disappear than in any other busy marine area. A case of this nature has never been documented, but it is suspected that this natural phenomenon could be behind some unexplained disappearance.
JM Mulet is a biochemist and popularizer.
