Design and Deployment of a Controlled Source EM Instrument on the NEPTUNE Observatory for Long-term Monitoring of Methane Hydrate Deposits

Hydrocarbon deposits in the form of petroleum, natural gas, and natural gas hydrates occur offshore worldwide. Electromagnetic methods that measure the electrical resistivity of sediments can be used to map, assess, and monitor these resistive targets. In particular, quantitative assessment of hydrate content in marine deposits, which form within the upper few hundred meters of seafloor, is greatly facilitated by complementing conventional seismic methods with EM data. The North-East Pacific Time-series Undersea Network Experiment (NEPTUNE) is an underwater marine observatory that provides power and network connection to a host of instruments installed on the seafloor on the Cascadia Margin offshore Vancouver Island. The observatory’s aim is to provide a platform for very long-term studies in which access to data is available on a continuous basis. For this thesis project, a transient dipole-dipole time-domain EM system was constructed and deployed on the NEPTUNE network with the goal of long-term monitoring of a well-studied hydrate deposit in the area. The instrument includes a source transmitter of electrical current and individual receivers to measure small electric field variations. The instrument is powered by the NEPTUNE observatory and data can be collected remotely by connecting to the instrument through the web. Data collected so far from the instrument are consistent with a resistive structure. The best fitting model from 1D inversion is a 36 ± 3 m thick layer of 5.3 ± 0.3 Ωm resistivity, overlaying a less resistive 0.7 ± 0.1 Ωm halfspace. Average hydrate concentration, deduced with the aid of ODP-889 well-log derived Archie’s parameters, is approximately 72% of pore space in the resistive layer, consistent with the very high concentration of gas hydrates (~80%) recovered from seafloor cores. The weekly collection of data from the instrument shows that the resistive structure has changed little since monitoring began in October of 2010.Ph