Comparison of offshore and onshore gas occurrences, Eel River basin, northern California

The Eel River basin of northern California is a upper Cenozoic depocenter containing more than 3,000 meters of sedimentary rock located near the Mendocino triple junction. Active tectonism has resulted in folding, faulting and rapid sedimentation. Both thermogenic and microbial hydrocarbons are known to be present in the sediments. In August 1997, we sampled two submarine gas seeps, one at a water depth of 520 m that supports a chemosynthetic-based ecosystem very near an area of previously recovered gas hydrate. Another vent site was sampled in sand covered with white bacterial mats at a water depth 41 m. We compared the hydrocarbon gas composition and methane isotopic composition of these seeps with land-based gas occurrences that include: 1) a gas seep and 2) gas from a 2360 m-deep gas well.