Hydrate Ridge EXperiment 2004 (HyREX04)

In August 2004, the Marine EM Lab conducted a 25 site CSEM, MT and CSMT survey at Hydrate Ridge, offshore Oregon in order to asses the capabilities of the marine controlled-source electromagnetic method for in situ characterization of gas hydrates and gas hydrate bearing sediments. Karen Weitemeyer, an EM lab graduate student funded by the Seafloor Electromagnetic Methods Consortium, is currently working on analyzing this extensive data set for her Ph.D.

Paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, February 2006 (Click to download):

K. Weitemeyer, S. Constable, K. Key, and J. Behrens. First results from a marine controlled-source electromagnetic survey to detect gas hydrates offshore Oregon. Geophysical Research Letters, 33(L03304), 2006. (PDF, 700 KB).

Karen presented this work at the 2006 MARELEC Meeting, Amsterdam. Click the links below to download her talk:

Karen Weitemeyer's Hydrate Ridge Talk, PDF format (12.5 MB).

HyREX04 Cruise Report, PDF (1.5 MB).

HyREX04 Cruise Photos Website.

Figure 1. Bathymetric map of survey area at southern Hydrate Ridge (SHR) (from MBARI multibeam survey,
2001). Inset shows regional location (ETOPO2 global relief from NOAA, 2001). NHR, northern Hydrate Ridge.

Figure 2. Pseudosection results for (a) 15 and (b) 5 Hz data, with a combined apparent resistivity and gas hydrate saturation scale; (c) 1-D inversions for marked locations; (d) seismic line 230, and (e) logging-while-drilling (LWD) deep resistivity logs. GH, gas hydrate or free gas inferred from a seismic inversion [Zhang and McMechan, 2003]; BSR, bottom simulating reflector; A, B, B0, seismic horizons explained in text. ODP Leg 204 sites are marked on seismic section. EM receiver sites are marked by red asterisk.