| Gas Hydrates Flyer | Hydrate Ridge Flyer | UTIG Gas Hydrates Projects |
Principal Investigators: Nathan Bangs, Mrinal Sen, and Yosio Nakamura
Check out the processed seismic data!
Funded by: National Science Foundation award #9907205
Start Date: January 1, 2000
Expires: December 31, 2003 (estimated)
In June and July, 2000, scientists at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, Oregon State University, and Columbia University will conduct a high-resolution seismic reflection and refraction survey of Hydrate Ridge, offshore Oregon, to examine why this setting is highly concentrated in gas hydrate. Gas hydrate is an ice-like substance that forms under specific temperature-pressure conditions that are found within the shallow most few hundred meters of seafloor sediments deposited in water depths greater than 500 m. Global estimates of gas hydrates place the total amount of carbon locked up in gas hydrates at twice the amount of all the rest of Earth’s other hydrocarbons combined. This potential hydrocarbon resource, the effects on global climate from release of methane trapped in gas hydrates (methane is commonly the main gas in hydrate and is also a greenhouse gas), and the effects of hydrates on seafloor slope stability have sparked new efforts to understand the occurrence and distribution of gas hydrates in the shallow seafloor sediments. Gas hydrates are commonly found along convergent margins and are believed to concentrate in these settings because of the high fluid and methane flux out of the accretionary wedge and through the hydrate stability zone. We have planned a seismic investigation to examine the relationship between gas hydrate concentrations and the fluid flow system within the accretionary wedge.