Seismic detection of marine methane hydrate

W. S. HOLBROOK, A. R. GORMAN, M. HORNBACH, K. L. HACKWITH, AND J. NEALON, University of Wyoming, Laramie, U.S.
D. LIZARRALDE, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, U.S.
I. A. PECHER, Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand

As offshore petroleum exploration and

development move into deeper water,

industry must contend increasingly with
gas hydrate, a solid compound that
binds water and a low-molecular-weight
gas (usually methane). Gas hydrate has
been long studied in industry from an
engineering viewpoint, due to its tendency to clog gas pipelines.
However, hydrate also occurs naturally wherever there are high pressures,
low temperatures, and sufficient concentrations of gas and water. These conditions prevail in two natural
environments, both of which are sites
of active exploration: permafrost
regions and marine sediments on continental slopes. In this article we discuss
seismic detection of gas hydrate in
marine sediments.
Gas hydrate in deepwater sediments
poses both new opportunities and new
hazards. An enormous quantity of natural gas, likely far exceeding the global
inventory of conventional fossil fuels, is
locked up worldwide in hydrates. Extraction of this unconventional resource
presents unique exploration, engineering, and economic challenges, and several countries, including the United
States, Japan, Canada, India, and Korea,
have initiated joint industry-academicgovernmental programs to begin studying those challenges. Hydrates also
constitute a potential drilling hazard.
Because hydrates are only stable in a
restricted range of pressure and temperature, any activity that sufficiently
raises temperature or lowers pressure
could destabilize them, releasing potentially large volumes of gas and decreasing the shear strength of the host
sediments. Assessment of the opportunities and hazards associated with
hydrates requires reliable methods of
detecting hydrate and accurate maps of
their distribution and concentration.
Hydrate may occur only within the
upper few hundred meters of deepwater sediment, at any depth between the
seafloor and the base of the stability
zone, which is controlled by local pressure and temperature. Hydrate is occasionally exposed at the seafloor, where
it can be detected either visually or
acoustically by strong seismic reflection
amplitudes or high backscatter on sidescan sonar records (although this signature is often complicated by associated

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Figure 1. Location of Blake Ridge, offshore SE

United States. The white region on the Blake
Ridge shows the mapped extent of gas hydrate
deposits.

authigenic carbonate hardgrounds).

However, much hydrate exists within
the pore spaces of sediments at depths
down to the base of the hydrate stability zone, and it need not be associated
with seafloor hydrate outcrops. Therefore, accurate mapping of hydrate occurrences requires methods of detecting and
quantifying hydrate at depth, not just
hydrate exposed at the seafloor.
The standard method for determining where hydrate occurs at depth is by
identifying a bottom-simulating reflector (BSR) on seismic reflection sections.
The BSR represents a reflection from the
hydrate-gas phase boundary, which
generates an impedance contrast because hydrate-bearing sediments have a
higher P-wave velocity than gas-bearing
sediments. The essential characteristic
of the BSR is its cross-cutting relationship
to strata, which identifies it as a chemical phase boundary rather than a stratigraphic reflection. Using the BSR as the
sole indicator of hydrate occurrence has
severe limitations, however. While BSRs
are common in hydrate-bearing sediments, they are not ubiquitous; indeed,
in environments where fluid flow is
highly focused, such as the Gulf of
Mexico, they are rare or absent. Results
from Ocean Drilling Program Leg 164
showed that hydrates can be present
even where BSRs are lacking. Moreover,
the amplitude of the BSR is strongly sensitive to small concentrations of gas
beneath the HSZ. Determination of
hydrate concentrations from BSR amplitudes requires careful AVO modeling,
preferably by prestack full waveform

inversion, and even then, the BSR confers information only about the concentration of hydrate within a few meters
of the phase boundary. The BSR, then,
reliably indicates the presence of hydrate
but says very little about its vertical or
lateral distribution.
How can hydrate be detected at
depth within sediments? Some recent
seismic reflection results from the Blake
Ridge provide an instructive case study.
The Blake Ridge, one of the best-studied hydrate provinces in the world,
could be described as the type section
of hydrate deposits. The first hydrate
BSR was discovered on the Blake Ridge,
and the first samples of marine gas
hydrates were recovered there. The ridge
is a sediment drift deposit formed by
contour-hugging currents of the Western
Boundary Undercurrent, which flows
south along the western margin of the
North Atlantic Ocean (Figure 1). The
ridge juts southeastward into the deeper
ocean basin; the hydrate-bearing portion of the ridge occurs in water depths
of about 2000-4000 m. Because of its relative sedimentological and tectonic simplicity, the Blake Ridge is an excellent
locale to study the hydrate/gas system;
in particular, the relatively uniform
lithology (muds and silts) provides a virtual tabula rasa against which strong
anomalies in physical properties (e.g.,
velocity, density, and reflectance) can be
confidently interpreted in terms of
hydrate or free gas. In Fall 2000, we
acquired seismic reflection data on the
Blake Ridge aboard the R/V Maurice
Ewing, using a 2-GI gun source (105/105
in3) and a 6000-m, 480-channel digital
streamer. The resulting seismic data are
of excellent quality and resolution and
contain three different examples of direct
seismic detection of gas hydrate:
enhanced reflectors (hydrate bright
spots), cross-stratal reflections in the
hydrate stability zone (paleo-BSRs),
and zones of reduced reflectance
(amplitude blanking).
Depending on its concentration,
hydrate can either enhance or suppress
seismic reflectance. Recent studies of permafrost hydrates in the Mallik well of
Arctic Canada show that hydrate may
preferentially form in more porous (and
thus lower-velocity) layers, raising their
velocity relative to the less porous
(higher-velocity) layers. At low satura-

Seafloor

Two-way traveltime(s)

Figure 2. Seismic data from line 3D-03, showing prominent, high-amplitude reflections (arrows) in
the hydrate stability zone. BSR is the bottom-simulating reflection, which marks the phase boundary between the hydrate stability zone and the underlying free gas zone. Right inset shows detailed
velocity-depth function at site of inverted triangle, derived by waveform inversion of prestack data.
The strong reflection at 3.76 s two-way traveltime is caused by a high-velocity layer at 2.96 km
depth, likely a zone of concentrated gas hydrate.

Figure 3. Seismic data from line R37, showing two adjacent chimneys of low reflectance, immediately overlying disruptions in the BSR. The chimneys are thought to represent gas-migration
features.

tions (below ~25% of pore space),

hydrate may thereby reduce the impedance contrast between more- and lessporous strata, suppressing seismic
reflectancea phenomenon called
blanking. At high hydrate saturation,
however, hydrate-bearing layers can
have velocities significantly greater than
the surrounding sediment, thus gener-

ating enhanced reflectance. The Blake

Ridge data show examples of both
enhanced and suppressed reflectance
due to the effects of hydrate.
Numerous anomalously bright
reflections in the data set likely correspond to layers of concentrated hydrate.
A particularly clear example occurs on
line 3D-03 (Figure 2), where several

short, strong reflections occur in an otherwise simple section of stratified,

faulted sediments. Waveform inversion
of the prestack data clearly shows that a
positive velocity anomaly at a subseafloor depth of 250 m is responsible for
the bright reflection at 3.87 s. (Interestingly, visual inspection of the reflection
falsely suggests a reversed polarity
compared to the seafloora cautionary
tale of the dangers of casually interpreting waveform polarity of thin-bed reflections.) The vertical association of these
bright reflections with disruptions in the
underlying gas zone makes a clear case
that these events represent concentrated
hydrate formed by upward migration of
methane gas along faults or fractures.
The high-velocity anomaly reaches a
peak of 2.1 km/s against a background
of 1.9 km/s, consistent with a hydrate
saturation of 60-80% of the pore volume.
These observations indicate that, even in
a relatively low-methane-flux environment such as the Blake Ridge, free gas
can penetrate upward hundreds of
meters through the hydrate stability
zone before forming hydrate. The principal barrier to upward migration of gas
is not formation of hydrate, but natural
traps, such as low-permeability capping
sediment.
Upward migration of free gas in
hydrate systems often creates zones of
vertically reduced reflection amplitudes,
or chimneys. An example is given in
Figure 3, which shows two adjacent
chimneys of about 100 m radius, each of
which overlies a disruption in the BSR.
Immediately beneath each chimney,
reflection amplitudes in the free gas zone
(at and beneath the BSR) are anomalously weak, suggesting that free gas
has escaped from beneath the BSR,
migrated upward along faults or hydrofractures, and created the chimneys. Gas
escape features, such as chimneys and
disruptions in the BSR, are often associated with bright amplitudes in the
hydrate stability zone (e.g., Figure 2).
The example in Figure 4 shows
bright, laterally restricted reflections at
traveltimes of 100-250 ms beneath the
seafloor, which are particularly pronounced within a 500-m radius of a clear
disruption in the BSR and sub-BSR gascharged zone. The association of the disrupted BSR with enhanced amplitudes
in the hydrate stability zone suggests
that the bright, shallow reflections are
layers of concentrated hydrate formed
by the rapid migration of free gas out of
the hydrate stability zone. Although such
features are relatively common in
hydrate-bearing regions, to our knowledge, a gas hydrate chimney has never
been drilled, nor has a chimney been
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Figure 4. Seismic data from line R38, showing short, high-amplitude reflections in the hydrate
stability zone in association with disruptions in the BSR. These features are interpreted as concentrated hydrate resulting from vertical migration of free gas from below the BSR.

definitively determined to correspond

to a high-velocity anomaly (the narrow
radius of these features makes velocity
analysis challenging). For that reason, it
remains unclear whether chimneys are
zones of locally enhanced gas hydrate
concentration (with accordingly
blanked amplitudes) or merely disturbed zones due to fluid migration

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(with amplitudes reduced by scattering).

Another example of a reflection from
gas hydrate comes from the eroding
flank of the Blake Ridge, where a clear
reflection cross-cuts dipping strata but
lies well within the hydrate stability
zone, ~80 m above the present BSR
(Figure 5). We interpret this reflection as
the top of a zone of concentrated hydrate

that formed after one or more episodes

of seafloor erosion. Following erosion,
the subseafloor temperature gradient reequilibrates, causing the hydrate/gas
phase boundary to move downward
(analogously, after sedimentation the
phase boundary moves upward). The
zone of concentrated hydrate lies in
strata that are currently highly gascharged beneath the present-day BSR.
The crosscutting reflection thus represents a paleo-BSR, marking the position of the phase boundary prior to
erosion.
The interpretation of the paleo-BSR
as a reflection from the top of a zone of
concentrated hydrate is bolstered by two
characteristics of the underlying lens of
material: high P-velocities and reduced
reflectance (amplitude blanking).
Reflectance is clearly anomalously low
in a lens of ~80 m thickness immediately
between the present-day BSR and the
paleo-BSR described above: Strata that
pass downward through the paleo-BSR
have distinctly lower reflectance within
the lens than above it. Detailed velocity
analysis shows that the lens has a significantly higher P-velocity (1910 m/s)
than adjacent strata at the same subseafloor burial depth (1820 m/s), consistent with a hydrate saturation of 40%.
The combined evidence of a lowreflectance, high-velocity lens capped by
a cross-stratal reflector convincingly supports an interpretation of enhanced
hydrate concentrations.
Unfortunately, amplitude blanking
due to hydrate can be difficult to identify unequivocally, because reflectance
can change laterally for reasons that have
nothing to do with hydrate. Of particular importance (and difficulty) is the definition of a reference reflectance
identifying areas of low reflectance
begs the question of low relative to
what? In particular, it is invalid to compare reflectances of strata at different
stratigraphic levels (which have no a priori reason to be similar), and it is especially important to disregard the
reflectances of strata beneath the BSR,
which are often enhanced by free gas.
(The overall contrast between high
reflection amplitudes beneath the BSR
and low amplitudes above the BSR is not
due to amplitude blanking, but rather to
amplitude enhancement by gas beneath
the BSR.) Carefully calibrated amplitude
blanking can be useful as an indicator of
possible hydrate accumulations, but
quantitative estimates of hydrate concentration are very difficult to obtain
solely from reflectance.
The best-case scenario for interpreting hydrate occurrence from amplitude
blanking is when, as in Figure 5, ampli-

global carbon cycle. Due in part to ongoing efforts of the Ocean Drilling
Program, and to collaborations among
industry, government, and academia
forged by the Department of Energys
recently initiated National Methane
Hydrate R&D Program (http://www.netl.
doe.gov/scng/hydrate/maincontent.htm), the
next few years promise to be a time of
quantum increase in knowledge of
hydrate systems and their geologic and
geophysical signatures.

Figure 5. Seismic data from line 3D-82x, showing a zone of reduced amplitudes (blanking),
capped by a top hydrate reflection that cross-cuts dipping strata. The top-hydrate reflection is
a paleo-BSR produced when seafloor erosion caused the hydrate/gas phase boundary to migrate
downward, freezing free gas into hydrate.

tudes of individual strata are reduced in

a zone that also has an anomalously high
P-wave velocity. The hydrate concentration is then best inferred from the
magnitude of the P-wave velocity, not
the degree of blanking. Blanking alone
should be considered a tenuous indicator of hydrate unless, at a minimum,
blanked zones are also independently
confirmed to have locally enhanced Pwave velocity. Indeed, any direct indication of hydrate, including bright spots
within the hydrate stability zone, must
be confirmed as a high-VP anomaly by
seismic velocity analyses in order to be
confidently associated with methane
hydrate.
It is important to recognize that
hydrate occurrences are still relatively
poorly known, and their distribution
and detection are likely to vary considerably from place to place. The examples
shown here from the Blake Ridge are
relatively simple and straightforward
but might easily be masked in more complex sedimentological or tectonic environments.
A key challenge, then, is to develop
reliable techniques for detecting and
quantifying gas hydrate occurrences in
complex geologic environments. Surface
seismic techniques are likely to remain
a linchpin of hydrate detection, but it is
particularly important to obtain broadband, high-resolution data that also have
sufficient source-receiver offsets to accurately determine seismic velocities and
amplitude-variation-with-offset behav-

ior. Multicomponent, ocean-bottom

cables are likely to be an important technology to characterize hydrate-bearing
sediments, because the addition of
hydrate to sediments can increase their
shear-wave velocity as well as their Pwave velocity. Some nonseismic tools
show promise for detecting and quantifying hydrates, especially geoelectrical
sounding, which responds to the relatively high resistivity of hydrate-bearing
sediment. Ultimately, what is needed are
focused studies of methane hydrate systems using an array of complementary
techniques, applied in the full range of
natural environments in which hydrates
occur. These studies will have wideranging implications: Methane hydrates
are of interest not just as a potential fossil fuel reserve, but also due to their possible role in climate change and the

Suggested reading. Migration of methane

gas through the hydrate stability zone in
a low-flux hydrate province by Gorman
et al. (Geology, 2002). Elastic-wave velocity in marine sediments with gas hydrates:
Effective medium modeling by Helgerud
et al. (Geophysical Research Letters, 1999).
Methane hydrate and free gas on the
Blake Ridge from vertical seismic profiling by Holbrook et al. (Science, 1996).
Direct seismic detection of methane
hydrate on the Blake Ridge by Hornbach
et al. (GEOPHYSICS, 2002). Gas hydrates
Geological perspective and global change
by Kvenvolden (Reviews of Geophysics,
1993). Amplitude blanking related to the
pore-filling of gas hydrate in sediments
by Lee and Dillon (Marine Geophysical
Researches, 2001). Scientific results from
JAPEX/JNOC/GSC Mallik 2L-38 gas
hydrate research well, Mackenzie Delta,
Northwest Territories, Canada by
Dallimore et al. (Geological Survey of
Canada, 1999). Geophysical studies of
marine gas hydrate in northern Cascadia
by Hyndman et al. (Geophysical Monograph
124, American Geophysical Union, 2000).
TLE
Acknowledgments: We thank the captain and crew
of the R/V Maurice Ewing for a successful
cruise. This work was funded by the National
Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of
Energy.
Corresponding author: steveh@uwyo.edu

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