Ocean observatory networks monitor gas hydrates systems - Updates from Cascadia

Abstract:

Seafloor observatories have been installed at the Cascadia margin with a long-term (>20 year) lifespan. These observatories consist of a variety of node locations cabled back to shore for continuous power and communication to instruments via high bandwidth internet access. Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) maintains two hydrate sites at Barkley Canyon and Clayoquot Slope off Vancouver Island, and the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Cabled Array connects to Hydrate Ridge off the Oregon coast.

Together, these installations comprise a diverse suite of different experiments. For example, a seafloor crawler, operated by Jacobs University in Bremen, travels around the Barkley hydrate mounds on a daily basis and carries out a suite of measurements such as determining the rate of change of the benthic community composition. Another example is from several years of hourly sonar data showing gas bubbles rising from the seafloor near the Bullseye Vent with varying intensities, allowing statistically sound correlations with other seafloor parameters such as ground shaking, temperature and pressure variations and currents, where tidal pressure appearing as the main driver. The Southern Hydrate Ridge is now equipped with the world's first long-term seafloor mass spectrometer, co-located with a camera and lights, hydrophone, current meters, pressure sensor, autonomous dissolved oxygen and fluid samplers, and is surrounded by a seismometer array for local seismicity.

In the future, long-term data will be continuously captured and made available throughout the year covering the full range of variations of the dynamic hydrate system, and expect additional experiments to be connected to the observatories from the broader research community.