[1] Methane gas hydrates, crystalline inclusion compounds formed from methane and water, are found in marine continental margin and permafrost sediments worldwide. This article reviews the current understanding of phenomena involved in gas hydrate formation and the physical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments. Formation phenomena include pore-scale habit, solubility, spatial variability, and host sediment aggregate properties. Physical properties include thermal properties, permeability, electrical conductivity and permittivity, small-strain elastic P and S wave velocities, shear strength, and volume changes resulting from hydrate dissociation. The magnitudes and interdependencies of these properties are critically important for predicting and quantifying macroscale responses of hydrate-bearing sediments to changes in mechanical, thermal, or chemical boundary conditions. These predictions are vital for mitigating borehole, local, and regional slope stability hazards; optimizing recovery techniques for extracting methane from hydrate-bearing sediments or sequestering carbon dioxide in gas hydrate; and evaluating the role of gas hydrate in the global carbon cycle.

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[1] Clay-rich mass transport deposits (MTDs) in the Ursa Basin, Gulf of Mexico, record failures that mobilized along extensional failure planes and transformed into long runout flows. Failure proceeded retrogressively: scarp formation unloaded adjacent sediment causing extensional failure that drove successive scarp formation updip. This model is developed from three-dimensional seismic reflection data, core and log data from Integrated Ocean Drilling Project (IODP) Expedition 308, and triaxial shear experiments. MTDs are imaged seismically as low-amplitude zones above continuous, grooved, high-amplitude basal reflections and are characterized by two seismic facies. A Chaotic facies typifies the downdip interior, and a Discontinuous Stratified facies typifies the headwalls/sidewalls. The Chaotic facies contains discontinuous, high-amplitude reflections that correspond to flow-like features in amplitude maps: it has higher bulk density, resistivity, and shear strength, than bounding sediment. In contrast, the Discontinuous Stratified facies contains relatively dim reflections that abut against intact pinnacles of parallel-stratified reflections: it has only slightly higher bulk density, resistivity, and shear strength than bounding sediment, and deformation is limited. In both facies, densification is greatest at the base, resulting in a strong basal reflection. Undrained shear tests document strain weakening (sensitivity = 3). We estimate that failure at 30 meters below seafloor will occur when overpressure = 70% of the hydrostatic effective stress: under these conditions soil will liquefy and result in long runout flows.

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[1] A technique for visualizing particle transport in the interior of a porous medium is presented. The technique, which includes the construction of a translucent medium and the use of laser-induced fluorescence for particle tracking, was used to examine the behavior of a dilute suspension of negatively charged, micron-sized particles in the interior of uniform glass bead packs during one-dimensional, downward flow. Particle behavior as a function of pore fluid velocity and bead surface roughness was observed at both the macroscopic and microscopic levels. Experimental results show that particle filtration occurred only at solid-solid contact points (contact filtration) in smooth bead packs, while particle filtration occurred at the top of bead surfaces (surface filtration) as well as at solid-solid contact points in rough bead packs. Particle contact filtration was the result of physical straining at solid-solid contact points, while surface filtration was the result of particles interlocking on surface asperities. In both smooth and rough bead packs the filtration capacity of the medium decreased with the pore fluid velocity. In smooth bead packs the filtration capacity was approximately invariant with transport distance, while in the rough bead packs the filtration capacity showed a decrease with transport distance. This decrease was attributed to the early surface filtration of larger particles as a result of gravitational sedimentation. The accumulation of reversibly attached particles was observed even when particle pore fluid concentrations were stable.Citation: Yoon, J. S., J. T. Germaine, and P. J. Culligan (2006), Visualization of particle behavior within a porous medium: Mechanisms for particle filtration and retardation during downward transport, Water Resour. Res., 42, W06417,

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