Characterization of sediment cores containing methane hydrate recovered from the Eastern Nankai Trough

On the March 2013, Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) has conducted the first gas production test from methane hydrate deposits in the Nankai Trough offshore Japan. In the Eastern Nankai Trough area off the Pacific coast of Japan, highly concentrated methane hydrate deposits were discovered in Pleistocene turbidite sediments.. Along with geological information, structure and physical properties of the sediments are essential information to understand the nature and origin of the deposits, and preserving those in-situ values in core samples for laboratory testing on surface is a quite important scientific challenge. To solve the problem, JOGMEC and JAMSTEC have developed a pressure coring device and utilized it on D/V Chikyu for our coring operation before the production test. In this operation, we obtained two types of cores; one is the dissociation preserved core by rapidly cooled by emerging into liquid nitrogen (LN2 core), the other is stored in special pressure vessels without depressurizing and kept under original pressure and temperature (pressure core). Here the summary of LN2 core sample analyses, such as X-ray CT, p-wave velocity, particle analysis, permeability, mechanical properties, and gas composition, is presented. Also future analysis plan for pressure core is explained. This work was supported by funding from the Research Consortium for Methane Hydrate Resources in Japan (MH21 Research Consortium) planned by METI.