Underwater Gas Tornado and its Possible Occurrence in Nature

An underwater gas tornado is a hydrodynamic phenomenon inverse to the well-known sucking whirlpool. Because it occurs only under special conditions, it has not received sufficient attention for possible applications and has not been studied theo- retically. After demonstrating a simple experiment, we study the hydrodynamic solutions of the gas flow in the tornado core interacting with the surrounding rotating liquid. The main question we try to answer here is whether this phenomenon can oc- cur under natural conditions. We assume that methane-hydrate deposits in the sea bottom are a mighty underwater gas source. There are a few geological examples of bottom traces that seem quite similar to traces of atmospheric tornadoes. These so- called pockmarks are located over methane-hydrate deposits and are possibly traces of underwater tornados. We suggest an experiment to test this hypothesis.