Offshore Natural Gas Hydrates of the Sigsbee Escarpment: Quantitative Seismic Interpretation Study of the Resource Potential for Gas Hydrates in the Green Canyon and Walker Ridge Regions, Gulf of Mexico

Progress towards understanding the scope of Natural Gas Hydrates (NGH) found within the Gulf of Mexico has been pursued by various institutions over the past decade with great success. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Gulf of Mexico Gas Hydrate Joint Industry Project, logging-while-drilling (LWD) data has been made available to academia. Through the combination of the LWD data collected from block GC955 with a large 2,500 square mile 3D Seismic dataset acquired by Marine Geoscientists within the Department of Oceanography at Texas A&M University, a broader survey area provides focus to study the extent of NGH from the Sigsbee outward to the abyssal GOM. The study that encompasses these geophysical tools is directed at understanding where gas hydrate stability zones are located adjacent to the complex Luann Salt along the Sigsbee Escarpment. Knowledge of the petrophysical and tertiary rock properties has been applied to the extracted seismic map attributes to quantify these Natural Gas Hydrate accumulations in an effort to understand the economic potential for this promising lucrative unconventional resource.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90142 © 2012 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, April 22-25, 2012, Long Beach, California