Gas bubble plumes observed at north slope of South China Sea from multi-beam water column data

Liu Bin; Liu Shengxuan

doi:10.3969/j.issn.0253-4193.2017.09.008

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Liu Bin, Liu Shengxuan. Gas bubble plumes observed at north slope of South China Sea from multi-beam water column data[J]. Haiyang Xuebao, 2017, 39(9): 83-89. doi: 10.3969/j.issn.0253-4193.2017.09.008

Citation:

Liu Bin, Liu Shengxuan. Gas bubble plumes observed at north slope of South China Sea from multi-beam water column data[J]. Haiyang Xuebao, 2017, 39(9): 83-89. doi: 10.3969/j.issn.0253-4193.2017.09.008

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Gas bubble plumes observed at north slope of South China Sea from multi-beam water column data

doi: 10.3969/j.issn.0253-4193.2017.09.008

Key Laboratory of Marine Mineral Resource, Ministry of Land and Resource, Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey, Guangzhou 510075, China

Received Date: 2016-12-08
Rev Recd Date: 2017-02-08

Abstract

Abstract

Methane emission from seabed is a wide phenomenon around the world. Gas bubble plumes were observed in the Multi-Beam(MB) water column echo image with the newly (2016) acquired data in the north slope of South China Sea. Gas bubbles manifest themselves as flares on the MB image, and have the diameter of about 30 to 50 m. Plumes emanating from the~1 380 m depth seabed to the~650 m depth, resulting heights of >700 m. On the sub-bottom profile passing through the plume, we found the acoustic blanking zone which may indicate the gas migration pathway, but no clear anomalies were observed in the water column. This may be explained by the low resolution of the sub-bottom profiler image or the intermittence of the gas seepage. Lacking of multi-channel seismic and geochemistry data, we cannot further infer the formation mechanism of the gas plumes. The discovery of gas bubble plumes in the north slope of south china may improve our understanding of the methane seepage on the passive continental marginal, and the formation and dissociation of gas hydrates.
- north slope of South China Sea,
- Qiongdongnan Basin,
- gas flares,
- plume,
- water column image

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References(31)

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