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The Leading Edge; April 2004; v. 23; no. 4; p. 366-372; DOI: 10.1190/1.1729223
© 2004 Society of Exploration Geophysicists
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Study of gas hydrates in the deep-sea Gulf of Mexico from seismic data

Florence Cassassuce and James Rector

University of California at Berkeley, U.S.

Mike Hoversten

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, U.S.

Corresponding author: fcassassuce@lbl.gov

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Gas hydrates are solid ice-like structures in which gas molecules are trapped within cages of water molecules. They are found in the marine sediments along continental margins worldwide. Because hydrates contain a large concentration of methane, they are a potential energy resource.

In the Gulf of Mexico, gas hydrates have been found in a number of surface expressions and analysis of piston cores. However, the classic seismic detection method—looking for semicontinuous bottom-simulating reflectors (BSRs)—has not been successful in revealing hydrate reservoirs.

Milkov and Sassen (2001) postulate that, in the Gulf of Mexico, gas hydrate accumulations are concentrated along the rims of salt-withdrawal basins and over salt ridges where there is often intense fracturing and faulting. Fractures may act as conduits for the focused upward expulsion of fluids and methane gas. This is referred to as channeled flux, in which a few preferred pathways transport the majority of the fluid. Figure 1 illustrates this scenario by presenting a modeled distribution of gas hydrates within the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) at the Mississippi Canyon 853 site in the Gulf of Mexico.


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  		Figure 1. Hypothesized subsurface distribution of gas hydrate at Mississippi Canyon Block 853 (hatched areas). The base of the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) is a line connecting the two salt domes (from Milkov and Sassen, 2001).

 
As a result, we would not expect to see a laterally continuous BSR such as is observed in tectonically less active areas such as Blake Ridge. We use the data from a 2D seismic survey conducted in Mississippi Canyon Block 383 to search for potential hydrate reflections within the hydrate stability zone in the vicinity of faults (i.e., near the salt dome).

The hydrate stability zone is estimated by using the empirical equation proposed by Brown et al. (1996). On the stacked section, two reflection . . . [Full Text of this Article]




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