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Samples of escaping gas were collected by diving teams, from underwater gas seeps, analysis of which showed the gas at the bottom of the North Sea to be almost pure methane, but that the major component from the geothermally heated areas of the Southern Aegean was carbon dioxide.

Gas bubbling out of the sediments of the seabed carries water with it, rich in nutrients such as phosphates and ammonia which influence the algae at the shallower sites. This effect is quite important in the Aegean where under normal conditions phosphate deficiency severely hampers algal growth. During an earthquake which occurred at the Island of Milos during a MAST cruise in March 1992, measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale, amounts of phosphate in the overlying water doubled because of the sudden release of interstitial fluids.

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