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，在溶解甲烷达到饱和点、静水压力足够高、水温较低的条件下，可以在海洋沉积物中发现由囚禁在水分子(笼子)中的甲烷分子组成的固体矿物结构。由于笼状结构对温度-压力的敏感性(当它们被带到海面或较浅的水深处时，它们会自发分解释放气体甲烷)以及它们的全球丰度，这组调查人员将进行研究，以确定甲烷从笼状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储量和进入水柱的通量，(2)确定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。作为研究俄勒冈州海岸外卡斯卡迪亚吸积棱镜中甲烷笼状化合物的更大国际活动的参与者，这些调查人员将开展研究，承诺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的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.