Funds are provided for processing and analysis of Vertical Line Array (VLA)
data collected over identified gas hydrate mounds visible on the sea bottom of the Gulf of
Mexico continental slope. Unlike other similar gas hydrate localities discovered
worldwide, the Gulf of Mexico gas hydrates appear to largely lack the presence of a
Bottom Simulating Reflector (BSR) on classic multichannel seismic reflection data.
Therefore, in collaboration with the University of Mississippi and Specialty Devices Inc.,
funds are requested by the University of South Carolina to process and analyze pseudo-3D
ultrahigh resolution (10,000 samples/s) vertical cable data in order to (1) monitor the
seafloor stability on the continental slope, (2) identify the bottom of the gas hydrate layer
and thus evaluate the amount of gas hydrates hosted by the shallow sediments, (3)
elucidate that the gas hydrate layer is a dynamic feature that re-equilibrates rapidly across
the overlying shallow structural faulting, and (4) reveal the methane flux conduits in the
study area and how this relates to the gas hydrate concentrations.
Vertical cable technology is a new tool that has shown promise in its ability to
better image the subsurface in highly complex geological environments compared to
conventional streamer seismic data. With this project, we will use industry software
(Landmark ProMAX and OpenWorks) in order to develop specialized processing flows
and applications that span navigation, deconvolution, multiple attenuation, velocity
analysis and pre- and post-stack depth migration. Although these data will be very high
resolution, the Landmark software handles them very well, as shown in Figure 1. The
VLA data will be processed at the University of South Carolina that has the suitable
computational ability to carry this project, including 2 Sun Ultra 60 and one Sun Blade
workstations as well as a Linux platform all of which have 2- and 3-D ProMAX software,
an advanced tool for acoustic wave processing.

Personnel
Camelia C. Knapp
Bradley M. Battista

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