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

在世界各地的海洋沉积物中，在溶解的甲烷处于饱和点、流体静压力足够高和水温较低的条件下，发现了由甲烷分子笼在水分子晶格（笼形物）中组成的固体矿物形成。 由于笼形结构的温度-压力敏感性（当被带到海面或较浅的水深时，它们会自发分解释放气态甲烷）以及它们的全球丰度，这个研究小组将进行研究，以确定甲烷从笼形结构释放并上升到海洋水柱后会发生什么。 他们的研究目标是（1）追踪来源，并确定甲烷存量和水柱通量，（2）确定这种甲烷在水柱中的命运，（3）确定甲烷存量和氧化率与区域地球物理特征之间的关系。 作为一项更大规模的国际努力的参与者，研究俄勒冈州海岸外卡斯卡迪亚增生棱镜中的甲烷笼形物，这些调查人员将开展研究，有望将这些海底特征的出现与海洋中碳循环的更大图景以及海洋在调节地球大气中甲烷和二氧化碳方面的作用联系起来。

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.