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Heat flow and quantity of methane deduced from a gas hydrate field in the vicinity of the Dnieper Canyon, northwestern Black Sea

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Abstract

Seismic reflection data document for the first time the existence of a BSR in a limited area west of the Dnieper Canyon in the northwestern Black Sea. Seismic wide-angle data suggest that gas hydrates occupy in average 15±2% of the pore space in a zone of 100 m in thickness. A conservative quantification of the amount of methane associated with this gas hydrate occurrence is about 12±3×1011 m3 (0.6±0.2 Gt of methane carbon). Conductive heat flow deduced from the BSR depth is in the range of 21±6 to 55±15 mW m−2.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the unfailing help of the captain, officers, crew and in particular the scientific party of the R/V Professor Logachev during the Black Sea cruise reported here. This work is carried out in the framework of the GHOSTDABS project of the German national research program “Gas Hydrates in the Geosystem” (GEOTECHNOLOGIEN) of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the German Research Foundation (Project no. 03G0559A). This is publication no. GEOTECH-41 of the GEOTECHNOLOGIEN program and no. 2 of the GHOSTDABS project.

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  1. Institute of Biogeochemistry and Marine Chemistry, University of Hamburg, Bundesstrasse 55, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Thomas Lüdmann, How Kin Wong & Philipp Konerding

  2. GEOMAR, Research Center for Marine Geosciences, Wischhofstrasse 1–3, 24148, Kiel, Germany

    Matthias Zillmer, Jörg Petersen & Ernst Flüh

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  1. Thomas Lüdmann
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Correspondence to Thomas Lüdmann.

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Lüdmann, T., Wong, H.K., Konerding, P. et al. Heat flow and quantity of methane deduced from a gas hydrate field in the vicinity of the Dnieper Canyon, northwestern Black Sea. Geo-Mar Lett 24, 182–193 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-004-0169-y

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