Images

 USGS researchers deploying an instrumented minipod South of Fire Island, NY.

Researchers have postulated that seafloor collapse or sediment failure could occur when certain drilling and extraction activities are conducted in deepwater marine environments where gas hydrates exist in the shallow sediments.  This schematic diagram, modified from Ruppel, Boswell, and Jones (2008), shows a compilation of other researchers

The USGS Gas Hydrates Project integrates across USGS mission areas, programs, and regions. The stars indicate the locations of personnel involved in the Gas Hydrates Project. Within the US, much of the research focuses on the Gulf of America and Alaska, which represent marine and permafrost-associated settings for gas hydrates, respectively.

Static stress change models for known or hypothesized faults in the Hispaniola and Puerto Rico subduction segments due to (a) slip on a patch of the Puerto Rico subduction zone, and (b) slip on a patch of the Hispaniola subduction zone. An open arrow denotes slip direction and the patches are marked by dashed rectangles.

(Top image) Shaded relief of the new multibeam bathymetry along the Puerto Rico Trench illuminated from the northwest. Thin contours indicate bathymetry at 500-m intervals. (Bottom image) Combined bathymetry map of the multibeam bathymetry data, single-beam bathymetry compilation around Puerto Rico, Lidar data near shore, and topography of Puerto Rico.

Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center's Ellyn Montgomery (right) on the helipad of the Canadian Coast Guard Vessel Louis St. Laurent returning from an ice reconnaissance flight as part of a joint study mapping the foot of the continental slope in the Arctic Ocean in 2008

A pressurized, stable, hydrate-bearing sediment core can be fed through the IPTC body, shown here being used in Singapore to support the Indian National Gas Hydrates Program (NGHP1)

Helicopter on the deck of a Canadian coast guard ice breaker ship in the Arctic Ocean.

Protected Species Observer aboard CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent

Helicopter view of Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St. Laurent (top) and U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (bottom) on the Arctic Ocean. This was during a scientific expedition to map the extended continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.

Launching a sonobuoy receiver off the end of CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent

 Inner continental shelf sediment textures within western Massachusetts Bay classified using Barnhardt and others (1998). Bottom photographs A-D show sediment texture in select locations (photograph locations are shown as white dots on the sediment texture map).

Shaded relief image of Woods Hole, MA

Bathymetry of of the southern Gulf of Maine with the Massachusetts coastal zone boundary outlined in grey.

Shaded relief backscatter image of a shipwreck near Cuttyhunk, MA

Image showing the bathymetry of the southern Gulf of Maine with the Massachusetts coastal zone boundary outlined in grey. The images on the right display how the geophysical and sample data are combined to create an interpretation of seafloor geology

Swath bathymetry and derivative products such as slope, hillshaded relief, and rugosity maps provide information not only on water depth, but also the roughness and smoothness of the sea floor, which correlates with sea floor texture and depositional environment.

Sediment texture and distribution data were mapped qualitatively in Esri ArcGIS using a hierarchical methodology. Backscatter data were the first input, followed by bathymetry, surficial geologic and shallow stratigraphic interpretations, and photograph and sample databases. DEM, digital elevation model.

Oblique hillshaded-relief view of the bathymetry surrounding Martha’s Vineyard and the Upper Cape looking south across Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound

Photograph of a starfish on the sea floor, offshore of Duxbury to Hull, Massachusetts