It can also come from the deep rocks below (perhaps having seeped up from a conventional geological gas accumulation). Energy Fuels 19, 469–470.)īut where does the methane come from that is captured by the clathrate? In seabed sediment, methane can be generated by microbiological activity. Global distribution of methane hydrate in ocean sediment. (Redrawn from Klauda, J.B., Sandler, S.I., 2005.
However, unlike other resources, for example conventional oil and gas or coal bed methane, their occurrence and relationship with host sediments is poorly understood, as are methods to extract them in deep-sea locations.įig. Global methane hydrate resources are estimated at 2 × 10 14 m 3 of methane. Because of the size of the area postulated for subsea methane hydrates, their global resource is considered very large, greater than for all other hydrocarbon energy sources ( Fig. The hydrate ‘cage’ allows the methane molecules to be held close together, much closer than in a free gas, so small amounts of hydrate hold a lot of gas. Methane hydrates are ice-like substances which belong to a family of compounds known as clathrates, which comprise a lattice cage of a ‘host’ molecule within which ‘guest molecules’ are trapped. Methane hydrate deposits are a kind of shortcut fossil fuel in that they contain natural gas that mainly has not been buried very deep but which is still possible to extract from frozen soils or deep seabed sediments.
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