Japan will seek to extract natural gas from seabed deposits of methane hydrate, also known as "burning ice," in the world's first such offshore experiment, a news report said Monday.

In Cabeus, approximately 5.6 percent of the mass inside the crater could be water ice alone, Coleprate and colleagues report in a series of papers in this week's Science.

The report also highlights new evidence that changes in Arctic snow and ice conditions may actually be accelerating the warming process.