“…Even then, insight into the microstructure might be hampered by the fact that the recovered samples were usually stored in liquid nitrogen which freezes liquid water present in the sample -possibly altering the microstructure and obscuring details of the GH-sediment interface. Largely unperturbed samples can be expected from pressure-cored samples [Abegg et al, 2008;Konno et al, 2015;Santamarina et al, 2012Santamarina et al, , 2015Yoneda et al, 2013] but access to microstructural information on a submicron scale has not been obtained so far. A number of researchers have attempted to emulate the nucleation and growth of gas hydrate in sedimentary matrices via laboratory experiments to obtain the material properties as a function of the saturation of GH in order to support geophysical exploration methods [Berge et al, 1999;Best et al, 2010Best et al, , 2013Dai et al, 2012;Dvorkin et al, 2003;Ecker et al, 2000;Hu et al, 2010;Li et al, 2011;Priest et al, 2006Priest et al, , 2009Spangenberg and Kulenkampff, 2006;Yun et al, 2005;Zhang et al, 2011].…”