76 Scientific American November 1999 Flammable Ice Flammable Ice Methane-laced ice crystals in the seafloor store more energy than all the world’s fossil fuel reserves combined. But these methane hydrate deposits are fragile, and the gas that escapes from them may exacerbate global warming by Erwin Suess, Gerhard Bohrmann, Jens Greinert and Erwin Lausch Copyright 1999 Scientific American, Inc.