IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v385y1997i6615d10.1038_385426a0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Direct measurement of in situ methane quantities in a large gas-hydrate reservoir

Author

Listed:
  • Gerald R. Dickens

    (University of Michigan
    James Cook University)

  • Charles K. Paull

    (University of North Carolina)

  • Paul Wallace

    (Texas A & M University)

Abstract

Certain gases can combine with water to form solids—gas hydrates—that are stable at high pressures and low temperatures1,2. Conditions appropriate for gas-hydrate formation exist in many marine sediments where there is a supply of methane. Seismic reflection profiles across continental margins indicate the frequent occurrence of gas hydrate within the upper few hundred metres of sea-floor sediments, overlying deeper zones containing bubbles of free gas3–9. If large volumes of methane are stored in these reservoirs, outgassing may play an important role during climate change10–12. Gas hydrates in oceanic sediments may in fact comprise the Earth's largest fossil-fuel reservoir2,13. But the amount of methane stored in gas-hydrate and free-gas zones is poorly constrained2–9,13–18. Here we report the direct measurement of in situ methane abundances stored as gas hydrate and free gas in a sediment sequence from the Blake ridge, western Atlantic Ocean. Our results indicate the presence of substantial quantities of methane (˜15 GT of carbon) stored as solid gas hydrate, with an equivalent or greater amount occurring as bubbles of free gas in the sediments below the hydrate zone.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerald R. Dickens & Charles K. Paull & Paul Wallace, 1997. "Direct measurement of in situ methane quantities in a large gas-hydrate reservoir," Nature, Nature, vol. 385(6615), pages 426-428, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:385:y:1997:i:6615:d:10.1038_385426a0
    DOI: 10.1038/385426a0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/385426a0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/385426a0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tan, Lin & Liu, Fang & Dai, Sheng & Yao, Junlan, 2024. "A bibliometric analysis of two-decade research efforts in turning natural gas hydrates into energy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 299(C).
    2. Mahboubeh Rahmati-Abkenar & Milad Alizadeh & Marcelo Ketzer, 2021. "A New Dynamic Modeling Approach to Predict Microbial Methane Generation and Consumption in Marine Sediments," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-17, September.
    3. Chong, Zheng Rong & Yang, She Hern Bryan & Babu, Ponnivalavan & Linga, Praveen & Li, Xiao-Sen, 2016. "Review of natural gas hydrates as an energy resource: Prospects and challenges," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1633-1652.
    4. Li, Cong & Xie, Heping & Gao, Mingzhong & Chen, Ling & Zhao, Le & Li, Cunbao & Wu, Nianhan & He, Zhiqiang & Li, Jianan, 2021. "Novel designs of pressure controllers to enhance the upper pressure limit for gas-hydrate-bearing sediment sampling," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    5. Li, Xiao-Sen & Xu, Chun-Gang & Zhang, Yu & Ruan, Xu-Ke & Li, Gang & Wang, Yi, 2016. "Investigation into gas production from natural gas hydrate: A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 286-322.
    6. Guo, Da & Xie, Heping & Gao, Mingzhong & Li, Jianan & He, Zhiqiang & Chen, Ling & Li, Cong & Zhao, Le & Wang, Dingming & Zhang, Yiwei & Fang, Xin & Liu, Guikang & Zhou, Zhongya & Dai, Lin, 2024. "In-situ pressure-preserved coring for deep oil and gas exploration: Design scheme for a coring tool and research on the in-situ pressure-preserving mechanism," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 286(C).
    7. Ewa Burwicz & Lars Rüpke, 2019. "Thermal State of the Blake Ridge Gas Hydrate Stability Zone (GHSZ)—Insights on Gas Hydrate Dynamics from a New Multi-Phase Numerical Model," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-24, September.
    8. Jia-Wang Chen & Wei Fan & Brian Bingham & Ying Chen & Lin-Yi Gu & Shi-Lun Li, 2013. "A Long Gravity-Piston Corer Developed for Seafloor Gas Hydrate Coring Utilizing an In Situ Pressure-Retained Method," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(7), pages 1-20, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:385:y:1997:i:6615:d:10.1038_385426a0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.