William F Waite, Ph.D
Bill Waite has spent his career being thrilled, confused, inspired and exasperated by gas hydrates – an educational relationship he began as a Stanford post-doc before shifting to the U.S. Geological Survey in 1999. He has moved from laboratory studies of physical properties of pure gas hydrates, to laboratory and field measurements of the physical properties of gas hydrate in sediment.
Biography
Education
Doctor of Philosophy and Masters of Science, Physics, University of Colorado: 1992-1998
Dissertation: A restricted meniscus motion model for wave attenuation in partially fluid-saturated porous rock, supervised by Prof. Hartmut Spetzler.
Bachelor of Arts, Physics (magna cum laude), Oberlin College: 1988-1992
Senior Thesis: Prediction and Measurement of Total Nuclear Reaction Cross Sections, supervised by Prof. Robert Warner.
Professional Positions
Geophysicist, U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole, MA: 1999-Present
Leader of the Gas Hydrate Project’s Laboratory Program. I coordinate research between the Woods Hole, MA and Menlo Park, CA laboratories in support of Gas Hydrate Project studies. I lead or co-lead fundamental, applied and synthesis-level studies of gas hydrate, with a focus on physical property measurements in pure gas hydrate, gas-hydrate-bearing sediment, and gas-hydrate-bearing pressure cores. Current Assignment: Lead USGS scientist for physical property studies in the NGHP-02 project.
Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford University/U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA: 1998-1999 Bridged the gas hydrate laboratory efforts at Stanford University and U.S. Geological Survey, measuring wave velocities and thermal properties of ice and of gas hydrates.
Professional Activities
Selected Invited Seminars:
2017: Methane gas hydrates: A tale of bubbles great and small. Talk presented at the University of New Hampshire, Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping Joint Hydrographic Center Seminar Series, April 7, 2017.
2016: Overviews of US involvement in pressure coring, with emphasis on recent results from the joint Indian effort. Presentation given in Sapporo, Japan to Japanese and Indian representatives from AIST, JOGMEC, and India. Presentations given in February and June.
2015: What do we learn from physical property measurements? Presentation given aboard the D/V Chikyu during the National Gas Hydrate Program NGHP-02 research cruise offshore India, May 6, 2015.
2015: Applications of Pressure Core Characterization Tools: Insights from the Nankai Trough. Invited talk given at the Gulf of Mexico Scientific Planning Workshop for Methane Hydrate Pressure Coring and Analysis, University of Texas, Austin, TX, March 9, 2015.
Rendering Scientific Judgement
Advisory Committees:
Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory
Gas Hydrate Reservoir Modeling for the National Gas Hydrate Program of India (NGHP)
University of Texas Gulf of Mexico Gas Hydrate Project
Thesis committee member:
Colorado School of Mines
Georgia Institute of Technology
GeoForschungsZentrum (Potsdam, Germany)
Associate Editor:
Journal of Marine and Petroleum Geology (currently: guest editor for the NGHP-02 special volume)
Journal of Geophysical Research B, Solid Earth (Jan. 2003 – Dec. 2011)
Reviewer:
2013 Exceptional Reviewer Award from American Institute of Physics (for the journal Review of Scientific Instruments)
2013 Certificate of Reviewing Excellence from Elsevier Publishing (for the Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering)
2011 Reviewer Certificate of Appreciation from the American Chemistry Society
Affiliations:
Member, American Geophysical Union (1987 – present)
Member, Phi Beta Kappa, Scientific Honor Society (1992 – present)
Member, Sigma Xi, Society for Research Scientists (1992 – present)
Science and Products
U.S. Geological Survey Gas Hydrates Project
The USGS Gas Hydrates Project focuses on the study of natural gas hydrates in deepwater marine systems and permafrost areas. The primary goals are:
- Evaluate methane hydrates as a potential energy source
- Investigate the interaction between methane hydrate destabilization and climate change at short and long time scales, particularly in the Arctic
- Study the spatial ...
Gas Hydrates- Laboratory and Field Support
The Instrumented Pressure Testing Chamber (IPTC)
A device for measuring the physical properties of naturally-occurring, hydrate-bearing sediment at nearly in situ pressure conditions.
Gas Hydrates - Primer
What is Gas Hydrate?
Gas hydrate is an ice-like crystalline form of water and low molecular weight gas (e.g., methane, ethane, carbon dioxide). On Earth, gas hydrates occur naturally in some marine sediments and within and beneath permafrost. Gas hydrates have also been inferred on other planets or their moons.
At the molecular level, gas hydrate...
Xenon hydrate as an analogue of methane hydrate in geologic systems out of thermodynamic equilibrium
Methane hydrate occurs naturally under pressure and temperature conditions that are not straightforward to replicate experimentally. Xenon has emerged as an attractive laboratory alternative to methane for studying hydrate formation and dissociation in multiphase systems, given that it forms hydrates under milder conditions. However, building...
Fu, Xiaojing; Waite, William F.; Cueto-Felgueroso, Luis; Juanes, Ruben Impact of pore fluid chemistry on fine-grained sediment fabric and compressibility
Fines, defined here as grains or particles, less than 75 μm in diameter, exist nearly ubiquitously in natural sediment, even those classified as coarse. Macroscopic sediment properties, such as compressibility, which relates applied effective stress to the resulting sediment deformation, depend on the fabric of fines. Unlike coarse grains,...
Jang, Junbong; Cao, Shuang C.; Stern, Laura A.; Jung, Jongwon; Waite, William F. Archie’s saturation exponent for natural gas hydrate in coarse-grained reservoirs
Accurately quantifying the amount of naturally occurring gas hydrate in marine and permafrost environments is important for assessing its resource potential and understanding the role of gas hydrate in the global carbon cycle. Electrical resistivity well logs are often used to calculate gas hydrate saturations, Sh, using Archie's equation....
Cook, Ann E.; Waite, William F. Geomechanical analysis of initial stage of gas production from interbredded hydrate-bearing sediment
Geomechanical stability of marine hydrate reservoirs during gas production by depressurization is the focus of this study. The reservoir considered here consists of thin hydrate rich sandy layers interbedded with mud layers. Because of the input parameter uncertainties involved, it is prudent from a geomechanical perspective to estimate the likely...
Lin, Jeen-Shang; Uchida, Shun; Myshakin, Evgeniy; Seol, Yongkoo; Rutqvist, Jonny; Boswell, Ray; Waite, William F.; Jang, Junbong; Collett, Timothy S. Hydro-bio-geomechanical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments from Nankai Trough
Natural hydrate-bearing sediments from the Nankai Trough, offshore Japan, were studied using the Pressure Core Characterization Tools (PCCTs) to obtain geomechanical, hydrological, electrical, and biological properties under in situ pressure, temperature, and restored effective stress conditions. Measurement results, combined with index-property...
Santamarina, J.C.; Dai, Shifeng; Terzariol, M.; Jang, Jeonghwan; Waite, William F.; Winters, William J.; Nagao, J.; Yoneda, J.; Konno, Y.; Fujii, T.; Suzuki, K. Gas hydrate formation rates from dissolved-phase methane in porous laboratory specimens
Marine sands highly saturated with gas hydrates are potential energy resources, likely forming from methane dissolved in pore water. Laboratory fabrication of gas hydrate-bearing sands formed from dissolved-phase methane usually requires 1–2 months to attain the high hydrate saturations characteristic of naturally occurring energy resource targets...
Waite, William F.; Spangenberg, E.K. Hydrate morphology: Physical properties of sands with patchy hydrate saturation
The physical properties of gas hydrate-bearing sediments depend on the volume fraction and spatial distribution of the hydrate phase. The host sediment grain size and the state of effective stress determine the hydrate morphology in sediments; this information can be used to significantly constrain estimates of the physical properties of hydrate-...
Dai, S.; Santamarina, J.C.; Waite, William F.; Kneafsey, T.J. Methane hydrate-bearing seeps as a source of aged dissolved organic carbon to the oceans
Marine sediments contain about 500–10,000 Gt of methane carbon1, 2, 3, primarily in gas hydrate. This reservoir is comparable in size to the amount of organic carbon in land biota, terrestrial soils, the atmosphere and sea water combined1, 4, but it releases relatively little methane to the ocean and atmosphere5. Sedimentary microbes convert most...
Pohlman, John; Waite, William F.; Bauer, James E.; Osburn, Christopher L.; Chapman, N. Ross Physical properties of sediment from the Mount Elbert Gas Hydrate Stratigraphic Test Well, Alaska North Slope
This study characterizes cored and logged sedimentary strata from the February 2007 BP Exploration Alaska, Department of Energy, U.S. Geological Survey (BPXA-DOE-USGS) Mount Elbert Gas Hydrate Stratigraphic Test Well on the Alaska North Slope (ANS). The physical-properties program analyzed core samples recovered from the well, and in conjunction...
Winters, William J.; Walker, Michael; Hunter, Robert; Collett, Timothy S.; Boswell, Ray M.; Rose, Kelly K.; Waite, William F.; Torres, Marta; Patil, Shirish; Dandekar, Abhijit Inter-laboratory comparison of wave velocity measures.
This paper presents an eight-laboratory comparison of compressional and shear wave velocities measured in F110 Ottawa sand. The study was run to quantify the physical property variations one should expect in heterogeneous, multiphase porous materials by separately quantifying the variability inherent in the measurement techniques themselves...
Waite, William F.; Santamarina, J.C.; Rydzy, M.; Chong, S.H.; Grozic, J.L.H.; Hester, K.; Howard, J.; Kneafsey, T.J.; Lee, J.Y.; Nakagawa, S.; Priest, J.; Reese, E.; Koh, H.; Sloan, E.D.; Sultaniya, A. Laboratory formation of non-cementing, methane hydrate-bearing sands
Naturally occurring hydrate-bearing sands often behave as though methane hydrate is acting as a load-bearing member of the sediment. Mimicking this behavior in laboratory samples with methane hydrate likely requires forming hydrate from methane dissolved in water. To hasten this formation process, we initially form hydrate in a free-gas-limited...
Waite, William F.; Bratton, Peter M.; Mason, David H. Methane hydrate-bearing seeps as a source of aged dissolved organic carbon to the oceans
Marine sediments contain about 500-10,000 Gt of methane carbon, primarily in gas hydrate. This reservoir is comparable in size to the amount of organic carbon in land biota, terrestrial soils, the atmosphere and sea water combined, but it releases relatively little methane to the ocean and atmosphere. Sedimentary microbes convert most of the...
Pohlman, J.W.; Bauer, J.E.; Waite, W.F.; Osburn, C.L.; Chapman, N.R.Pre-USGS Publications
International Gas Hydrate Workshop held in Tromso, Norway
The 2019 Sedimentary Gas Hydrate Workshop held in Tromso, Norway brought together early-career researchers and international experts including Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center Research Geophysicist, Bill Waite, who has spent his career being...