Infrared images of core sediments offshore southwestern Taiwan

Abstract:

The core sediments may retain the negative thermal anomaly caused by the gas hydrate dissociation on the way uploading from sea floor. To identify the signal of negative thermal anomaly, fifteen infrared images of core sediments with tens of meter in length have been analyzed the temperature distribution off southwestern Taiwan. This study results show that most of the core sediments were found lots of gaps with spiking pattern recognition of high temperature on the lower portions. The geochemistry study suggested that the gas in gaps and the sediments were mainly composed of methane which may be the indicators of gas hydrate dissociation in the higher temperature and lower pressure environment. The thermal gradients 0.044-0.114 ℃/m of core sediments are close to the observations in situ by the measurements of temperature probes that thermal gradient are 0.06-0.09 ℃/m. The temperature of all core sediments are greater than 20 ℃. It is obvious that the temperature of core sediments were increased tremendously by the heating of sea water. We found eight out of fifteen core sediments with significant negative thermal anomaly 0.4-1.0 ℃ in different depth between 2 and 10 meters below sea floor. Compare to the experiment in lab that the temperature could be decreased 1.1-1.5 ℃ due to the gas hydrate dissociation, the quantity of the negative thermal anomaly of the core sediments are possible related to the gas hydrate dissociation.