An integrated view of the methane system in the pockmarks at Vestnesa Ridge, 79°N

• Published in: Marine Geology
• Main Authors: Panieri, Giuliana, Bünz, Stefan, Fornari, Daniel, Escartin, Javier, Serov, Pavel, Jansson, Pär, Torres, Marta, Johnson, Joel, Hong, Weili, Sauer, Simone, Garcia, Rafael, Gracias, Nuno
• Other Authors: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Université de La Réunion (UR)-Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPG Paris)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate (CAGE), The Arctic University of Norway Tromsø, Norway (UiT), Geological Survey of Norway (NGU), Visio per computador i robotica (VICOROB), Universitat de Girona (UdG)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Svalbard; Lunde; Ridge Summit; Lomvi
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-02330303; https://hal.science/hal-02330303/document; https://hal.science/hal-02330303/file/article.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2017.06.006

International audience The Vestnesa Ridge is a NW-SE trending, ~100 km-long, 1-2 km-thick contourite sediment section located in the Arctic Ocean, west of Svalbard, at 79°N. Pockmarks align along the ridge summit at water depths of ~1200 m; they are ~700 m in diameter and ~10 m deep relative to the surrounding seafloor. Observations of methane seepage in this area have been reported since 2008. Here we summarize and integrate the available information to date and report on the first detailed seafloor imaging and camera-guided multicore sampling at two of the most active pockmarks along Vestnesa Ridge, named Lomvi and Lunde. We correlate seafloor images with