Abstract
Geochemical properties of gas hydrate accumulation associated with an active gas vent on the continental slope offshore northeast Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Okhotsk have been investigated. The pore water chemistry data suggest that the gas hydrates (GHs) were formed in an environment of upward-migrating fluid combined with a mechanism of pore water segregation. The upward infiltration of water enriched mainly by Cl− and K+ species appears to occur on the background of earlier diagenesis processes within the gas vent sediments. The GHs were formed from water with chlorinity ranging from 530 to 570 mM. The δ18O and δD of GH water varied from −1.4 to −1.8‰ and from −13 to −18‰, respectively, representing a mix of seawater and infiltrating fluid water. A complex interaction of pore water, water of ascending fluid and segregated pore water during hydrate formation is also supported by water content measurements and observed gas hydrate structure. The direction of segregated water is opposite to upward fluid migration. Decreasing activity of the gas vent is inferred by comparing the present top of the recovered hydrate layer with previous observations.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the Shipboard Scientific Party of the KOMEX-2002 cruise for fruitful cooperation and discussions onboard RV Akademik Lavrentyev. Personal thanks are addressed to O. Vereschagina (POI, Vladivostok) for headspace gas determination and kind support. We thank our colleagues from VNIIOkeangeologia (St.-Petersburg) A. Sigacheva and V. Kaulio for help in preparation of illustration for this work, and L. Mazurenko for the productive discussions of problems treated in this paper. We are grateful to A. Stadnitskaia (NIOZ) for useful suggestions. Chemical and isotope analyses were carried out by A.F. Bobkov and V.A. Polyakov (VSEGINGEO, Moscow) and by staff of the Chemical Laboratory of VNIIOkeangeologia. The Russian Foundation for Basic Research has partly supported this work (project 02-05-64346). We also would like to acknowledge the Administration of Kitami Institute of Technology (Japan) for financial support. We wish to thank Dr. Tom Lorenson and Dr. Ian R. MacDonald for their valuable comments and corrections that greatly improved the manuscript.
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Matveeva, T., Soloviev, V., Wallmann, K. et al. Geochemistry of gas hydrate accumulation offshore NE Sakhalin Island (the Sea of Okhotsk): results from the KOMEX-2002 cruise. Geo-Mar Lett 23, 278–288 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-003-0150-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-003-0150-1