Collaborative Research: Chemical Distributions and Fluxes in the Water Column Above an Emerging Methane Hydrate Field on the Cascadia Accretionary Prism

摘要9811471在世界各地的海洋沉积物中，在溶解甲烷处于饱和点、静水压力足够高、水温较低的条件下，发现了由笼在水分子晶格中的甲烷分子（笼形物）组成的固体矿物地层。由于包合物结构对温度-压力的敏感（当它们被带到海面或较浅的水域时，它们会自发地分解释放气态甲烷）以及它们在全球的丰富程度，这支调查小组将进行研究，以确定甲烷从包合物结构中释放出来并上升到海洋水柱后会发生什么。他们的研究目标是：(1)追踪甲烷的来源，确定甲烷的储量和到水柱的通量；(2)确定这些甲烷在水柱中的去向；(3)确定甲烷储量和氧化速率与区域地球物理特征之间的关系。作为一项规模更大的国际研究项目的参与者，这些研究人员将在俄勒冈州海岸外的卡斯卡迪亚（Cascadia）吸生棱镜（creactionary Prism）中研究甲烷包合物。他们将开展的研究有望将这些海底特征的出现与海洋中碳循环的大局联系起来，并与海洋在调节地球大气中甲烷和二氧化碳的作用联系起来。

ABSTRACT9811471Solid mineral formations composed of methane molecules caged in a lattice of water molecules (clathrates) are found in marine sediments around the world under conditions where dissolved methane is at the saturation point, hydrostatic pressures are sufficiently high, and water temperatures are low. Because of the exquisite temperature-pressure sensitivity of the clathrate structure (they spontaneously breakdown to release gaseous methane when brought to the sea surface or to shallower water depths) as well as their global abundance, this team of investigators will conduct studies to determine what happens after methane is released from the clathrate structure and rises into the marine water column. Their research goals are (1) to trace the source and determine methane inventory and flux to the water column, (2) to determine the fate of this methane in the water column, and (3) to determine relationships between methane inventories and oxidation rates with regional geophysical features. As participants in a much larger international effort studying methane clathrates in the Cascadia accretionary Prism off the coast of Oregon, these investigators will be carrying out studies that promise to relate the occurrence of these seafloor features to the bigger picture of the cycling of carbon in the sea and to the role of the ocean in regulating methane and carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere.