Benchtop Transparent Micromodels

A glass micromodel (upper left) allows fluid flow through gaps between solid cylinders (gap size of 100 micrometers is shown in the upper-right image). Injecting fine-grained materials allows us to characterize the conditions in which clogs occur, as they have done in the upper- and lower-right pictures. Scanning electron microscope images (lower left) of the fine-grain sediment often reveals which sediment components are contributing to clogs and other physical property results.  In the case described in the images here, sediment from the Ulleung Basin Gas Hydrate 2 Project (UBGH2) was rich in diatoms (shown in the lower images), which are prone to clogging due to their shapes and relatively large sizes of complete and fractured diatoms. (Credit William Waite (upper left), Laura Stern (lower left) and Jang et al., 2020 (right-hand images)