What are gas hydrates?
Gas hydrates are a crystalline solid formed of water and gas. It looks and acts much like ice, but it contains huge amounts of methane; it is known to occur on every continent; and it exists in huge quantities in marine sediments in a layer several hundred meters thick directly below the sea floor and in association with permafrost in the Arctic. It is not stable at normal sea-level pressures and temperatures, which is the primary reason that it is a challenge to study.
Gas hydrates are important for three reasons:
- They may contain a major energy resource
- It may be a significant hazard because it alters sea floor sediment stability, influencing collapse and landsliding
- The hydrate reservoir may have strong influence on the environment and climate, because methane is a significant greenhouse gas.
Learn more: U.S. Geological Survey Gas Hydrates Project
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Where are gas hydrates found?
Map showing locations where gas hydrate has been...
Who studies gas hydrates?
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Gas Hydrate Schematic
Summary of the locations where gas hydrate occurs beneath the seafloor, in permafrost areas, and beneath some ice sheets, along with the processes (shown in red) that destroy methane (sinks) in the sediments, ocean, and atmosphere. The differently colored circles denote different sources of methane. Gas hydrates are likely breaking down now on shallow continental
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Gulf of Mexico Gas Hydrate Formation
Gas hydrate (white, ice-like material) under authigenic carbonate rock that is encrusted with deep-sea chemosynthetic mussels and other organisms on the seafloor of the northern Gulf of Mexico at 966 m (~3170 ft) water depth. Although gas hydrate that forms on the seafloor is not an important component of the global gas hydrate inventory, deposits such as these
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Mallik Gas Hydrate Sample
A sample of gas hydrate from the Mallik Test Well in Canada. Credit: USGS.
Gas Hydrates Burning
An image of gas hydrates burning. Gas hydrates are naturally-occurring “ice-like” combinations of natural gas and water that have the potential to provide an immense resource of natural gas from the world’s oceans and polar regions.
USGS Gas Hydrates Lab
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Gas Hydrates in Marine Sediments from the Indian Ocean
This image shows gas hydrates (the white material) in marine sediments from a test well drilled in the Indian Ocean in 2006 during the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program (NGHP) Expedition 01.
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Gas Hydrates in Marine Sediments
This image shows gas hydrates (the white material) in marine sediments from a test well drilled in the Indian Ocean in 2006 during the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program (NGHP) Expedition 01.
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Gas Hydrates in Marine Sediments off the Oregon Coast
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Gas Hydrates in Marine Sediments off the Oregon Coast
During Ocean Drilling Program Leg 204, nine sites were cored and wireline logged on the Oregon continental margin to determine the distribution and concentration of gas hydrates in an accretionary ridge setting, investigate the mechanisms that transport methane and other gases into the gas hydrate stability zone, and obtain constraints on physical properties of gas
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Burning Gas Hydrates
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