Shallow Gas and Gas Hydrates in the Barents Sea Imaged by High-Resolution 3D Seismic Data

Shallow gas and gas hydrates are potential hazards for the petroleum industry, but may also represent future resources. Detailed mapping of shallow gas and gas hydrates is important to reduce drilling risks, to exploit hydrocarbon resources, and to better understand procesesse of gas migration and accumulation. We have collected two high resolution 3D seismic cubes of 10-20 km² in areas with shallow gas in the Barents Sea. The cubes were acquired using the P-Cable system in water depths of 300-500 m with the vessel R/V Jan Mayen. The data were processed using the RadexPro software and a standard sequence including geometry, tide corrections, binning, filtering, and migration. Two main sedimentary sequences are present in the data, a sub-horizontal glacial package overlying a westward-dipping Paleogene sequence. The seabed is characterized by up to 15 m deep glacial ploughmarks. An upper regional unconformity (URU) separates the glacial and Paleogene sediments. Three levels of high-amplitude reflections are interpreted as evidence of shallow gas. Minor gas accumulations are present as semi-circular anomalies within the glacial sequence and as north-south trending anomalies just below the URU. More extensive gas accumulations are found within the Paleogene sediments, and the top gas reflections are clearly cross-cutting the dipping Paleogene sequence. Several paleo-pockmarks are interpreted within the glacial sequence, whereas no pockmarks are identified on the seafloor. The gas is interpreted to be sealed by overlying gas hydrates. Gas hydrate models show that pure methane is outside the gas hydrate stability field in the surveyed region, but within the gas hydrate stability field if methane is mixed with minor amounts of higher-order hydrocarbons (ethane and propane).