Non-Fickian Diffusion Affects the Relation between the Salinity and Hydrate Capacity Profiles in Marine Sediments

On-site measurements of water salinity (which can be directly evaluated from the electrical conductivity) in deep-sea sediments is technically the primary source of indirect information on the capacity of the marine deposits of methane hydrates. We show the relation between the salinity (chlorinity) profile and the hydrate volume in pores to be significantly affected by non-Fickian contributions to the diffusion flux---the thermal diffusion and the gravitational segregation---which have been previously ignored in the literature on the subject and the analysis of surveys data. We provide amended relations and utilize them for an analysis of field measurements for a real hydrate deposit.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, submitted to Compte Rendus Mecaniqu

Methane hydrate dissociation rates as 0.1 MPa and temperatures above 272K

We performed rapid depressurization experiments on methane hydrate under isothermal conditions above 272 K to determine the amount and rate of methane evolution. Sample temperatures rapidly drop below 273 K and stabilize near 272.5 K during dissociation. This thermal anomaly and the persistence of methane hydrate are consistent with the reported recovery of partially dissociated methane hydrate from ocean drilling cores

Simultaneous determination of thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and specific heat in sI methane hydrate

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Journal International 169 (2007), 767–774, doi:10.1111/j.1365-246X.2007.03382.x.Thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and specific heat of sI methane hydrate were measured as functions of temperature and pressure using a needle probe technique. The temperature dependence was measured between −20°C and 17°C at 31.5 MPa. The pressure dependence was measured between 31.5 and 102 MPa at 14.4°C. Only weak temperature and pressure dependencies were observed. Methane hydrate thermal conductivity differs from that of water by less than 10 per cent, too little to provide a sensitive measure of hydrate content in water-saturated systems. Thermal diffusivity of methane hydrate is more than twice that of water, however, and its specific heat is about half that of water. Thus, when drilling into or through hydrate-rich sediment, heat from the borehole can raise the formation temperature more than 20 per cent faster than if the formation's pore space contains only water. Thermal properties of methane hydrate should be considered in safety and economic assessments of hydrate-bearing sediment.Gas Hydrate Project of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Coastal and Marine Geology Program, in addition to Department of Energy contract DE-AI21–92MC2921