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PAST AND PRESENT RECORDS OF GAS HYDRATE GEOCHEMICAL SIGNATURES IN A TERRIGENOUS MATERIALS DOMINATED ACTIVE MARGIN, SOUTHWEST OF TAIWAN

University of British Columbia. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; International Conference on Gas Hydrates (6th : 2008 : Vancouver, B.C.)

Temporal variations in gas hydrate related geochemical signatures under different deposition conditions are the primary purposes of this study. Accreted wedge located offshore Southwestern Taiwan receives high terrigenous river materials, 100 MT/yr, at present time. It is not clear how seep environment varied during the past glacial. A 25 meters long piston core was taken offshore Southwestern Taiwan on r/v Marion DuFresne. Short piston cores and box cores were also taken on r/v OR-1. Samples were analyzed for pore water dissolved sulfide, sulfate, methane, chloride, del O18, calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, pH, and sediment AVS, pyrite, inorganic carbon, del O- 18, C13. Changes in deposition environment play a major role in the study area. Three stages of geochemical processes are identified in the 25 meters long core, interchange between reduce and oxic depositional environments, with reducing condition in the top 10 m, oxic in between 10-20 meter and reducing below the 20 meter. High concentrations of dissolved sulfide, rapid sulfate depletion, increase of methane, decrease of calcium were found in pore water in the top 10 m of sediments together with high concentrations of pyrite, relatively higher proportion of coarsegrained sediment. Concentrations of pyrite were very low in sediments between 15 to 20 meters but increased rapidly from 20 to 25 meters with a maximum concentration at 400 umol/g. Chloride concentrations also increased to a maximum concentration of 630 mM at 20 m. The rapid increase of chloride indicated gas hydrate formation at this depth. Authigenic carbonate nodules were found in sediments below 20 m. The carbonate content also increased rapidly beneath this depth. Stable isotopic carbon composition of the carbonate varied rapidly beneath 20 m with a low at -28 per mil. The existence of oxic/reducing alterations indicates that methane seep may vary in the past in the study area.

Gas hydrates; Active margin; Gas seep

Conference Paper

application/pdf

2008-09-19

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/2291

Lin, Saulwood; Lim, Yee Cheng; Wang, Chung-ho; Chen, Yue-Gau; Yang, Tsanyao Frank; Wang, Yuanshuen; Chung, San-Hsiung; Huang, Kuo-Ming. 2008. PAST AND PRESENT RECORDS OF GAS HYDRATE GEOCHEMICAL SIGNATURES IN A TERRIGENOUS MATERIALS DOMINATED ACTIVE MARGIN, SOUTHWEST OF TAIWAN. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH 2008), Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA, July 6-10, 2008.

Lin, Saulwood

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