Numerical evidence of gas hydrate detection by means of electroseismics

Abstract

This work presents numerical evidence that methane hydrate-bearing sed14iments located below permafrost can be detected using electroseismics as15 a prospecting tool. The numerically solved equations are the ones devel16oped by Pride; we modified them by using an extended Biot formulation to17 appropriately deal with a composite (rock-ice/rock-methane hydrate) solid18 matrix. We modeled the subsurface as a two dimensional medium, and we19 used electromagnetic sources to give rise to the so called SHTE and PSVTM20 modes. The obtained results show that the seismic response is sensitive to21 the methane hydrate concentration.