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Modeling the Accumulation and Transition to the Relic State of Methane Hydrates in the Permafrost of Northwestern Siberia

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Abstract—This paper presents the results of numerical modeling of the permafrost thermal regime and thermobaric conditions of methane hydrates in the north of Western Siberia over the past 70 thousand years. The area of hydrate formation was determined and the rate of accumulation of hydrates was estimated in connection with the migration of fluid from the underlying gas-saturated layers under the conditions of cover glaciation. The estimates obtained for the change in hydrate saturation as a result of fluid migration during the 10 thousand-year glaciation period, depending on the permeability of the soil, are from 6 to 40% in the upper 350 m. Based on quantitative characteristics of the equilibrium and metastable states of methane hydrates, the conditions for the preservation of relict methane hydrates in permafrost under the paleoclimatic scenario were determined, taking into account periods of ice cover and transgression. It is shown that due to the effect of self-preservation at temperatures below –4°C, it is possible to preserve relict methane hydrates in the upper 200 m of soil under non-equilibrium conditions. The effect of lowering the temperature while the hydrates dissociate prevents the complete decomposition of the deposit and leads to an increase in the thickness of the frozen soil.

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Funding

The hydrate saturation of soil was calculated under the Russian Science Foundation’s Project No. 19-17-00240, conditions of the formation and destabilization of methane hydrates were estimated under the Russian Science Foundation’s Project No. 21-17-00012.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119017, Moscow, Russia

    M. M. Arzhanov

  2. Moscow State University, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    M. M. Arzhanov & V. V. Malakhova

  3. Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia

    V. V. Malakhova

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  1. M. M. Arzhanov
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Arzhanov, M.M., Malakhova, V.V. Modeling the Accumulation and Transition to the Relic State of Methane Hydrates in the Permafrost of Northwestern Siberia. Izv., Phys. Solid Earth 59, 242–253 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1069351323020040

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