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Bangs et al. 2005
Bangs, N.L.B., Musgrave, R.J. and Tréhu, A.M. (2005). Upward shifts in the southern Hydrate Ridge gas hydrate stability zone following postglacial warming, offshore Oregon. Journal of Geophysical Research 110: doi: 10.1029/2004JB003293. issn: 0148-0227.

High-resolution three-dimensional (3-D) seismic reflection data acquired on the R/V Thomas G. Thompson in 2000 reveal a pair of bottom simulating reflections (BSRs) across a broad region of southern Hydrate Ridge, offshore Oregon. The primary BSR (BSRp) is a regionally extensive reflection that lies 120--150 m below seafloor and exhibits typical characteristics of a gas hydrate BSR. We also imaged a second weaker BSR (BSRs), 20--40 m below BSRp, with similar characteristics. BSRs is interpreted as a remnant of a BSR that probably formed during the Last Glacial Maximum 18,000 years ago, when the base of the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) was deeper. An increase in bottom water temperatures of 1.75¿--2.25¿ and a corresponding sea level rise of 120 m could have produced the BSR shift. The preservation of BSRs for at least 5000 years, which is the time since subseafloor temperatures stabilized following ocean warming after the Last Glacial Maximum, implies very slow upward advective and diffusive flow of methane (<1 m/1000 years in the vicinity of BSRs). BSRs appears where there are no resolvable steeply dipping faults and fractures, consistent with very low advective flow rates, and has dispersed where vertical fractures are visible. Free gas released by the shift in the BSR either migrates so slowly that it remains stable beneath the GHSZ or is directed upward along fractures to reform as hydrate in the GHSZ. There is no evidence for release of this free gas into the ocean or atmosphere.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Marine Geology and Geophysics, Gas and hydrate systems, Global Change, Abrupt/rapid climate change (4901, 8408), Marine Geology and Geophysics, Continental shelf and slope processes, Marine Geology and Geophysics, Marine seismics (0935, 7294), Marine Geology and Geophysics, Subduction zone processes (1031, 3613, 8170, 8413), gas hydrate, bottom simulating reflection, Hydrate Ridge
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
http://www.agu.org/journals/jb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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