TY - JOUR

T1 - Hydrate occurrence in Europe

T2 - A review of available evidence

AU - Minshull, Timothy A.

AU - Marín-Moreno, Hector

AU - Betlem, Peter

AU - Bialas, Joerg

AU - Bünz, Stefan

AU - Burwicz, Ewa

AU - Cameselle, Alejandra L.

AU - Cifci, Gunay

AU - Giustiniani, Michela

AU - Hillman, Jess I.T.

AU - Hölz, Sebastian

AU - Hopper, John R.

AU - Ion, Gabriel

AU - León, Ricardo

AU - Magalhaes, Vitor

AU - Makovsky, Yizhaq

AU - Mata, Maria Pilar

AU - Max, Michael D.

AU - Nielsen, Tove

AU - Okay, Seda

AU - Ostrovsky, Ilia

AU - O'Neill, Nick

AU - Pinheiro, Luis M.

AU - Plaza-Faverola, Andreia A.

AU - Rey, Daniel

AU - Roy, Srikumar

AU - Schwalenberg, Katrin

AU - Senger, Kim

AU - Vadakkepuliyambatta, Sunil

AU - Vasilev, Atanas

AU - Vázquez, Juan Tomás

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported by the European Commission via ESSEM COST action ES1405, entitled Marine gas hydrate – an indigenous source of natural gas for Europe (MIGRATE). We thank Jack Schuenmeyer for advice and Ingo Pecher and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments. TAM was supported by a Wolfson Research Merit Award. ALC was supported by the ‘Programa de axudas á etapa posdoutoral da Xunta de Galicia’. LMP thanks CESAM ( UID/AMB/50017/2019 ) and FCT / MCTES for financial support . DR thanks the Ministerio de Ciencia Innovación y Tecnología of Spain and Consellería de Industria of the Xunta de Galicia for funding data acquisition offshore Galicia and A. E. López Pérez for his help with the Galician Marine bathymetry. SR is an Irish Research Concil Postdoctoral Fellow and acknowledges the Irish Petroleum Affairs Division, the Petroleum Infrastructure Programme, and the Marine Institute for geophysical and geological data sets from offshore Ireland. AV was supported by the Bulgarian National Science Fund (Project KP-06-OPR04/7 GEOHydrate). Metadata associated with this review are available at https://www.migrate-cost.eu/wg1-reports . Funding Information: This work was supported by the European Commission via ESSEM COST action ES1405, entitled Marine gas hydrate ? an indigenous source of natural gas for Europe (MIGRATE). We thank Jack Schuenmeyer for advice and Ingo Pecher and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments. TAM was supported by a Wolfson Research Merit Award. ALC was supported by the ?Programa de axudas ? etapa posdoutoral da Xunta de Galicia?. LMP thanks CESAM (UID/AMB/50017/2019) and FCT/MCTES for financial support. DR thanks the Ministerio de Ciencia Innovaci?n y Tecnolog?a of Spain and Conseller?a de Industria of the Xunta de Galicia for funding data acquisition offshore Galicia and A. E. L?pez P?rez for his help with the Galician Marine bathymetry. SR is an Irish Research Concil Postdoctoral Fellow and acknowledges the Irish Petroleum Affairs Division, the Petroleum Infrastructure Programme, and the Marine Institute for geophysical and geological data sets from offshore Ireland. AV was supported by the Bulgarian National Science Fund (Project KP-06-OPR04/7 GEOHydrate). Metadata associated with this review are available at https://www.migrate-cost.eu/wg1-reports. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 Elsevier Ltd

PY - 2020/1

Y1 - 2020/1

N2 - Large national programs in the United States and several Asian countries have defined and characterised their marine methane hydrate occurrences in some detail, but European hydrate occurrence has received less attention. The European Union-funded project “Marine gas hydrate – an indigenous resource of natural gas for Europe” (MIGRATE) aimed to determine the European potential inventory of exploitable gas hydrate, to assess current technologies for their production, and to evaluate the associated risks. We present a synthesis of results from a MIGRATE working group that focused on the definition and assessment of hydrate in Europe. Our review includes the western and eastern margins of Greenland, the Barents Sea and onshore and offshore Svalbard, the Atlantic margin of Europe, extending south to the northwestern margin of Morocco, the Mediterranean Sea, the Sea of Marmara, and the western and southern margins of the Black Sea. We have not attempted to cover the high Arctic, the Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian sectors of the Black Sea, or overseas territories of European nations. Following a formalised process, we defined a range of indicators of hydrate presence based on geophysical, geochemical and geological data. Our study was framed by the constraint of the hydrate stability field in European seas. Direct hydrate indicators included sampling of hydrate; the presence of bottom simulating reflectors in seismic reflection profiles; gas seepage into the ocean; and chlorinity anomalies in sediment cores. Indirect indicators included geophysical survey evidence for seismic velocity and/or resistivity anomalies, seismic reflectivity anomalies or subsurface gas escape structures; various seabed features associated with gas escape, and the presence of an underlying conventional petroleum system. We used these indicators to develop a database of hydrate occurrence across Europe. We identified a series of regions where there is substantial evidence for hydrate occurrence (some areas offshore Greenland, offshore west Svalbard, the Barents Sea, the mid-Norwegian margin, the Gulf of Cadiz, parts of the eastern Mediterranean, the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea) and regions where the evidence is more tenuous (other areas offshore Greenland and of the eastern Mediterranean, onshore Svalbard, offshore Ireland and offshore northwest Iberia). We provide an overview of the evidence for hydrate occurrence in each of these regions. We conclude that around Europe, areas with strong evidence for the presence of hydrate commonly coincide with conventional thermogenic hydrocarbon provinces.

AB - Large national programs in the United States and several Asian countries have defined and characterised their marine methane hydrate occurrences in some detail, but European hydrate occurrence has received less attention. The European Union-funded project “Marine gas hydrate – an indigenous resource of natural gas for Europe” (MIGRATE) aimed to determine the European potential inventory of exploitable gas hydrate, to assess current technologies for their production, and to evaluate the associated risks. We present a synthesis of results from a MIGRATE working group that focused on the definition and assessment of hydrate in Europe. Our review includes the western and eastern margins of Greenland, the Barents Sea and onshore and offshore Svalbard, the Atlantic margin of Europe, extending south to the northwestern margin of Morocco, the Mediterranean Sea, the Sea of Marmara, and the western and southern margins of the Black Sea. We have not attempted to cover the high Arctic, the Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian sectors of the Black Sea, or overseas territories of European nations. Following a formalised process, we defined a range of indicators of hydrate presence based on geophysical, geochemical and geological data. Our study was framed by the constraint of the hydrate stability field in European seas. Direct hydrate indicators included sampling of hydrate; the presence of bottom simulating reflectors in seismic reflection profiles; gas seepage into the ocean; and chlorinity anomalies in sediment cores. Indirect indicators included geophysical survey evidence for seismic velocity and/or resistivity anomalies, seismic reflectivity anomalies or subsurface gas escape structures; various seabed features associated with gas escape, and the presence of an underlying conventional petroleum system. We used these indicators to develop a database of hydrate occurrence across Europe. We identified a series of regions where there is substantial evidence for hydrate occurrence (some areas offshore Greenland, offshore west Svalbard, the Barents Sea, the mid-Norwegian margin, the Gulf of Cadiz, parts of the eastern Mediterranean, the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea) and regions where the evidence is more tenuous (other areas offshore Greenland and of the eastern Mediterranean, onshore Svalbard, offshore Ireland and offshore northwest Iberia). We provide an overview of the evidence for hydrate occurrence in each of these regions. We conclude that around Europe, areas with strong evidence for the presence of hydrate commonly coincide with conventional thermogenic hydrocarbon provinces.

KW - Europe

KW - Methane hydrate

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85071969308&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2019.08.014

DO - 10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2019.08.014

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85071969308

VL - 111

SP - 735

EP - 764

JO - Marine and Petroleum Geology

JF - Marine and Petroleum Geology

SN - 0264-8172

ER -