ALBERT

Description: Woolsey Mound, a 1km-diameter carbonate-gas hydrate complex in the northern Gulf of Mexico, is the site of the Gulf’s only seafloor monitoring station-observatory in its only research reserve, Mississippi Canyon 118. Active venting, outcropping hydrate, and a thriving chemosynthetic community recommend the site for study. Since 2005, the Gulf of Mexico Hydrates Research Consortium has been conducting multidisciplinary studies to 1. Characterize the site, 2. Establish a facility for real-time monitoring-observing of gas hydrates in a natural setting, 3. Study the effects of gas hydrates on seafloor stability, 4. Establish fluid migration routes and estimates of fluid-flux at the site, 5. Establish the interrelationships between the organisms at the vent site and the association-dissociation of hydrates. A variety of novel geological, geophysical, geochemical and biological studies has been designed and conducted, some in survey mode, others in monitoring mode. Geophysical studies involving merging multiple seismic data acquisition systems accompanied by the application of custom processing techniques verify communication of surface features with deep structures. Supporting geological data derive from innovative recovery techniques. Geochemical sensors, used experimentally in survey mode, including aboard an AUV, double as monitoring devices. A suite of pore-fluid sampling devices has returned data that capture change at the site in daily increments; using only noise as an energy source, hydrophones have returned daily fluctuations in physical properties. Ever-expanding capabilities of a custom-ROV have been determined by research needs. Processing of new as well as conventional data via unconventional means has resulted in the discovery of new features…..vents, faults, benthic fauna…..and modification of others including pockmarks, hydrate outcrops, vent activity, and water-column chemical plumes. Though real-time monitoring awaits communications and power link to land, periodic data-collection reveals a carbonate-hydrate mound, part of an immensely complex hydrocarbon system.

Description: Résumé Quatre sites ont été forés dans le talus volcanoclastique sous-marin de l'île volcanique de Gran Canaria au cours du Leg ODP 157. La sédimentation du talus enregistre l'évolution volcanique de l'île. Les grandes phases éruptives s'expriment clairement par d'importants apports clastiques contemporains au niveau du talus. En revanche, les périodes d'inactivité volcanique se traduisent par des taux de sédimentation très faibles. II est possible ainsi d'établir un découpage volcanostratigraphique à partir des sédiments marins. Abstract Four sites have been drilled in the submarine volcaniclastic apron of the volcanic island of Gran Canaria during the ODP Leg 157. The volcaniclastic submarine apron reflects the volcanological evolution of the island. The main volcanic phases are recorded in the sedimentation by an important contemporaneous clastic influx on the apron. However, periods of volcanic quiescence are characterized by very weak sedimentation rates. Consequently, it is possible to establish a volcanostratigraphy from the sedimentary record of the apron.