Chapter 1 Summary: The Phase Transitions of Methane Hydrates
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The novel opens in 2013 with Tony Pietrus, an oceanographer at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, sorting through a pile of mail left by a graduate assistant. The first envelope he opens is a confirmation letter from the American Geophysical Union for an upcoming conference presentation. The second envelope will change how he sees the world.
Tony and his colleague Niko Stubos have been running Monte Carlo simulations to predict how methane hydrates—crystalline structures of frozen water trapping methane gas—behave under changing temperature and pressure. The research is difficult to explain to laypeople, and Tony struggles with dwindling NSF funding. The 2010 BP oil spill gave the subject public attention when a containment dome clogged with hydrates, though Tony and Niko were frustrated by media mischaracterizations of their subject as frozen ice rather than trapped gas.
Tony's home life centers on his wife Gail, a literature doctoral student, and their two daughters: Holly, a precocious first-grader who reads above her age level, and Catherine, a toddler with a wild streak. Tony explains the science to Holly by describing the end-Permian extinction and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), both of which scientists believe were driven by rapid methane hydrate melting in a feedback loop: warming triggers hydrate release, which releases more methane, which warms the planet further.
The second envelope contains a handwritten letter accusing Tony of fraud and a pale powder. Tony washes his hands, calls 911, and is connected to the FBI. Agent Chen arrives with a biohazard unit. The powder turns out to be cornmeal—a hoax, though still a felony. The sender is never found.
A year later, Tony and Niko publish their findings and begin receiving hateful emails. Gail takes to calling Tony