Can the water pressure be so high in some places underwater that gas bubbles will be trapped in place, unable to rise up?
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In some conditions of low temperature/high pressure water in combination with rising methane from underlying sources, water can form a *methane clathrate*. The methane is trapped in an icy cage of linked water molecules via hydrogen bonding.
These methane clathrates are stable and can be set alight in air – burning ice. Concerns about oceanic warming causing catastrophic methane release from clathrate deposits seem to have abated somewhat, but the climate-change driven release of methane from melting permafrost is still present and a growing issue.
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