I think such a runaway effect might be more likely than people think. Such places could also still be deceptively quiet on the surface if it's only exchanging w

I think such a runaway effect might be more likely than people think. Such places could also still be deceptively quiet on the surface if it's only exchanging water-dissolved methane. It could turn boiling fast and sink ships due to lack of surface tension and rapid decrease in average water density. The Swarm by Schätzing depicted a scenario like this, concluding in the runaway being fast enough to eventually cause the clathrate to detonate, causing a large scale tsunami in the north sea of Europe.