Methane hydrate morphology of natural hydrate-bearing sediment from Nankai trough, Japan

As a part of MH21, the Research Consortium for Methane Hydrate Resources in Japan, who initiated Japan's Methane Hydrate R&D Program (managed by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI)), we developed newly pressured hydrate sediment analyzing apparatus (Pressured Non-destructive Analysis Tools, here after PNATs) including an X-ray computed-tomography (CT) system, gamma-ray density measurement system, an instrumented pressure testing chamber (IPTC). The Japanese IPTC was developed with strong cooperation from Georgia Tech and the U.S. Geological Survey. In this study, we investigated the hydrate morphology in natural gas hydrate-bearing (GH) sediment recovered from eastern Nankai trough area under hydro-pressurized condition using PNATs. In addition to P-wave measurement via the IPTC, we assessed hydrate saturation Sh in sediment sample by using our newly ATR-IR probe for the IPTC. Our analysis reveals that the pressurized sample shows load-bearing GH sediment.