Occurrence and exploration of gas hydrate in the marginal seas and continental margin of the Asia and Oceania region

• Published in: Marine and Petroleum Geology
• Main Authors: Matsumoto, Ryo, Ryu, Byong-Jae, Lee, Sung-Rock, Lin, Saulwood, Wu, Shiguo, Sain, Kalachand, Pecher, Ingo, Riedel, Michael
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Gas Hydrate; Seismic Evidence; Regional Distribution; Deep Drilling; Pore-fluid Constituents; Bottom-simulating Reflector; Arctic; Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: http://ir.qdio.ac.cn/handle/337002/32933; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2011.09.009

Supplies of conventional natural gas and oil are declining fast worldwide, and therefore new, unconventional forms of energy resources are needed to meet the ever-increasing demand. Amongst the many different unconventional natural resources are gas hydrates, a solid, ice-like crystalline compound of methane and water formed under specific low temperature and high pressure conditions. Gas hydrates are believed to exist in large quantities worldwide in oceanic regions of continental margins, as well as associated with permafrost regions in the Arctic. Some studies to estimate the global abundance of gas hydrate suggest that the total volume of natural gas locked up in form of gas hydrates may exceed all known conventional natural gas reserves, although large uncertainties exist in these assessments. Gas hydrates have been intensively studied in the last two decades also due to connections between climate forcing (natural and/or anthropogenic) and the potential large volumes of methane trapped in gas hydrate accumulations. The presence of gas hydrate within unconsolidated sediments of the upper few hundred meters below seafloor may also pose a geo-hazard to conventional oil and gas production. Additionally, climate variability and associated changes in pressure-temperature regimes and thus shifts in the gas hydrate stability zone may cause the occurrence of submarine slope failures.