Geological controls of giant crater development on the Arctic seafloor
Abstract Active methane seepage occurs congruent with a high density of up to 1 km-wide and 35 m deep seafloor craters (>100 craters within 700 km 2 area) within lithified sedimentary rocks in the northern Barents Sea. The crater origin has been hypothesized to be related to rapid gas hydrate...
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crspringernat:10.1038/s41598-020-65018-9 2023-05-15T15:07:59+02:00 Geological controls of giant crater development on the Arctic seafloor Waage, Malin Serov, Pavel Andreassen, Karin Waghorn, Kate A. Bünz, Stefan Norges Forskningsråd VISTA - A basic Research collaboration between the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and Equinor. Grant no. 6266. 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65018-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65018-9.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65018-9 en eng Springer Science and Business Media LLC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 CC-BY Scientific Reports volume 10, issue 1 ISSN 2045-2322 Multidisciplinary journal-article 2020 crspringernat https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65018-9 2022-01-04T10:56:38Z Abstract Active methane seepage occurs congruent with a high density of up to 1 km-wide and 35 m deep seafloor craters (>100 craters within 700 km 2 area) within lithified sedimentary rocks in the northern Barents Sea. The crater origin has been hypothesized to be related to rapid gas hydrate dissociation and methane release around 15–12 ka BP, but the geological setting that enabled and possibly controlled the formation of craters has not yet been addressed. To investigate the geological setting beneath the craters in detail, we acquired high-resolution 3D seismic data. The data reveals that craters occur within ~250–230 Myr old fault zones. Fault intersections and fault planes typically define the crater perimeters. Mapping the seismic stratigraphy and fault displacements beneath the craters we suggest that the craters are fault-bounded collapse structures. The fault pattern controlled the craters occurrences, size and geometry. We propose that this Triassic fault system acted as a suite of methane migration conduits and was the prerequisite step for further seafloor deformations triggered by rapid gas hydrate dissociation some 15–12 ka BP. Similar processes leading to methane releases and fault bounded subsidence (crater-formation) may take place in areas where contemporary ice masses are retreating across faulted bedrocks with underlying shallow carbon reservoirs. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Barents Sea Springer Nature (via Crossref) Arctic Barents Sea Scientific Reports 10 1 |
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Springer Nature (via Crossref) |
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English |
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Multidisciplinary |
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Multidisciplinary Waage, Malin Serov, Pavel Andreassen, Karin Waghorn, Kate A. Bünz, Stefan Geological controls of giant crater development on the Arctic seafloor |
topic_facet |
Multidisciplinary |
description |
Abstract Active methane seepage occurs congruent with a high density of up to 1 km-wide and 35 m deep seafloor craters (>100 craters within 700 km 2 area) within lithified sedimentary rocks in the northern Barents Sea. The crater origin has been hypothesized to be related to rapid gas hydrate dissociation and methane release around 15–12 ka BP, but the geological setting that enabled and possibly controlled the formation of craters has not yet been addressed. To investigate the geological setting beneath the craters in detail, we acquired high-resolution 3D seismic data. The data reveals that craters occur within ~250–230 Myr old fault zones. Fault intersections and fault planes typically define the crater perimeters. Mapping the seismic stratigraphy and fault displacements beneath the craters we suggest that the craters are fault-bounded collapse structures. The fault pattern controlled the craters occurrences, size and geometry. We propose that this Triassic fault system acted as a suite of methane migration conduits and was the prerequisite step for further seafloor deformations triggered by rapid gas hydrate dissociation some 15–12 ka BP. Similar processes leading to methane releases and fault bounded subsidence (crater-formation) may take place in areas where contemporary ice masses are retreating across faulted bedrocks with underlying shallow carbon reservoirs. |
author2 |
Norges Forskningsråd VISTA - A basic Research collaboration between the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and Equinor. Grant no. 6266. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Waage, Malin Serov, Pavel Andreassen, Karin Waghorn, Kate A. Bünz, Stefan |
author_facet |
Waage, Malin Serov, Pavel Andreassen, Karin Waghorn, Kate A. Bünz, Stefan |
author_sort |
Waage, Malin |
title |
Geological controls of giant crater development on the Arctic seafloor |
title_short |
Geological controls of giant crater development on the Arctic seafloor |
title_full |
Geological controls of giant crater development on the Arctic seafloor |
title_fullStr |
Geological controls of giant crater development on the Arctic seafloor |
title_full_unstemmed |
Geological controls of giant crater development on the Arctic seafloor |
title_sort |
geological controls of giant crater development on the arctic seafloor |
publisher |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65018-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65018-9.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65018-9 |
geographic |
Arctic Barents Sea |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Barents Sea |
genre |
Arctic Barents Sea |
genre_facet |
Arctic Barents Sea |
op_source |
Scientific Reports volume 10, issue 1 ISSN 2045-2322 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65018-9 |
container_title |
Scientific Reports |
container_volume |
10 |
container_issue |
1 |
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1766339414432153600 |