Jul 29, 2013 09:41 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

As if earthquakes could not already do enough damage and destruction, a new study now suggests they can release methane gas from the seabed, the New York Times reported.

The study, published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers detailed an underwater quake in Pakistani waters nearly 70 years ago that likely fractured the seafloor and made passages for methane to escape.

Lead author David Fischer, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bremen in Germany, and his team said climate scientists should take this into account when measuring heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.

"We suggest there is a new source that they might want to consider in the future," he said.

Methane is formed by the decomposition of organic material and is known to seep from reservoirs under the seafloor around the world. In certain conditions, it mixes with seawater and forms a cement-like ice compound called gas hydrates, creating a barrier against more methane seepage.

Fischer and his team took samples of such sediment cores in 2007 from two spots in the Arabian Sea where seepage was known to take place. The researchers found the flow of methane to have greatly increased midway through the 20th century. After looking at seismic records, they discovered an earthquake in 1945 and concluded it was the event that opened the methane passages.

"The quake broke open gas-hydrate sediments and the free gas underneath migrated to the surface," Fischer said. "[The hydrates] remain there."

If his team is correct, Fischer estimated more than ten million cubic yards of methane have been released since the quake. Fischer said that number is a conservative guess because a large burst of methane likely followed the quake.

The conclusion was hard to prove, but Dr. Joel E. Johnson, geology professor at the University of New Hampshire, called the research "solid."

"This is about as close as you're going to get" to proving earthquakes release methane, he said.

Johnson was skeptical of its impact on the atmosphere, if it had one at all. He was not sure the methane released from the quake actually even reached the atmosphere. Unless the flow rate is fast enough, he said, methane bubbles usually dissolve before reaching the surface.

See Now: Covert Team Inside Newsweek Revealed as Key Players in False Human Trafficking Lawsuit