Hydrate Ridge has the distinction of hosting the first documented subduction-driven cold seep system that supports chemosynthetic life by Anaerobic Oxidation of Methane as well as the most widely researched methane hydrate setting at any active continental margin. Today this site is a vital node of Northeast Pacific regional long-term...
Authigenic carbonates and chemosymbiotic biota are archives of seepage 1 history and record paleo-environmental conditions at seep sites. Based on mineral and stable isotope compositions and U/Th-isotope systematics of seep carbonates and Calyptogena sp shell fragments from three seep sites located at 22°02' ~22°09'N, 118°43'~118°52'E (water depths: 473 m to...
Seep characteristics at different geologic settings are the subject of this review primarily based on results of the Research Consortium SFB 574. Criteria are drawn from examples on the erosive convergent margin off Costa Rica, the accretionary margin off Chile supplemented by examples from the transform margin of the Golf...
To constrain the fluxes of methane (CH4) in the water column above the accretionary
wedge along the Cascadia continental margin, we measured methane and its stable carbon
isotope signature (δ¹³C-CH₄). The studies focused on Hydrate Ridge (HR), where
venting occurs in the presence of gas-hydrate-bearing sediments. The vent CH₄ has...
Submersible investigations of the Cascadia accretionary
complex have identified localized venting of methane gas
bubbles in association with gas hydrate occurrence. Acoustic
profiles of these bubble plumes in the water column in the
vicinity of Hydrate Ridge offshore Oregon provide new
constraints on the spatial distribution of these gas vents...
Geophysical and biogeochemical processes associated with fluid venting from active and passive continental margins will receive significant scientific and economic attention
into the next century and are of major societal relevance. An important unknown among these interrelated processes is the role played by methane gas hydrates, at and below the...