Scientists are trying to determine the source of a huge mass of methane looming over the southwestern United States where Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico meet.

As a 2014 study by NASA and University of Michigan researchers revealed, a 2,500 square mile area near the "Four Corners" intersection is producing the nation's biggest concentration of methane, a greenhouse gas that's many times more potent than carbon dioxide, and a significant contributor to global warming.

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To solve the methane concentration mystery, researchers decided to use special NASA airplanes carrying the Hyperspectral Thermal Emission Spectrometer (HyTES) and the Next-Generation Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRISng).

AVIRISng is capable of detecting methane and can also map it in great detail. Although public health and safety in the Four Corners region isn't under any direct threat from the methane emissions, experts opine that methane emitted from traditional oil and gas operations is generally accompanied by hydrocarbon emissions that lead to smog and causes respiratory ailments like asthma.

Nobody yet knows why Four Corners is giving off so much methane - an amount equivalent to almost 15 million tons of carbon dioxide or the equivalent of adding 3.1 million cars on the road every year.

Data from a satellite showed that from 2003 to 2009, the area didn't have a lot of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and gas, a process that some are concerned is a source of methane emissions.

But Four Corners is a major coal mining area, and a source of coal-bed methane, which supplies about eight percent of the nation's natural gas.

The plume discovered over Four Corners raises the possibility large amounts of methane are escaping from the mines - a problem that wasn't factored into the equation before.

Scientists are planning to use both airborne and ground based instruments to pinpoint the source of methane. Researchers hope to track the sources and eradicate this dangerous methane emission which could dangerously damage the environment.

TagsScientists Try to Solve the Methane Hot Spot in the Four Corners of U.S., four corners, hot spot, methane spot, Methane, NASA, Greenhouse Gas, global warming