Sea floor mapping of the Caribbean
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Sea Floor Mapping Upgrades

Advances in Sea Floor Mapping

Northern Gulf of Mexico deepwater bathymetry grid featuring salt tectonics, made from the oil industry’s 3-D seismic surveys.

Extract from the BOEM Article Showing the Location of New Under-sea Mapping
Northern Gulf of Mexico deepwater bathymetry grid.  We create this from 3-D seismic surveys. The grid defines water depth with 1.4 billion 12 × 12 meter cells. BOEM grid coverage is limited to the area defined by rainbow colors.

This article shows the use of high resolution of sea floor mapping. In fact the sea floor mapping in view in this article covers the Gulf of Mexico. So, by using high-res in this case, one provides better resolution and interpretation of sea-floor features. Indeed, this may well include methane hydrate resource patterns and history.

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has now created and released a new regional seafloor data set. It reveals that dynamic environment with stunning new clarity. The data include detailed seismic surveys originally shot by 15 different companies involved in the oil and gas industry. In addition, BOEM gained permission to release the relevant proprietary data publicly in a freely downloadable aggregate map of the seafloor. The detailed report is referenced below.

A number of examples show the improved interpretation potential of the maps available with the higher resolution. The location of methane hydrates becomes distinctly more possible to determine.

See https://eos.org/project-updates/a-1-4-billion-pixel-map-of-the-gulf-of-mexico-seafloor

Philip Morkel founded Hydragas Energy to develop his gas extraction from water technology. He has worked on and off on Lake Kivu, developing extraction technology and being on the expert group advising in its use. He is now starting fund-raising for a planned series of projects planned for Rwanda and DRC. The company is registered in Vancouver, Canada. He previously headed Barrick Gold's R&D Laboratory in Vancouver. Prior to that he led Hatch Limited's global oil and gas business unit, leading the company capability in LNG projects, gas-to-liquids and technology for unconventional oil and gas. For three years he led the projects in development team at Barrick Gold in Toronto, Canada, with a $30 billion portfolio of mining projects. Projects were located in four continents with challenging megaprojects in Chile, Russia, Pakistan, Africa and Alaska. Philip is a chemical engineer and project management professional with 30 years international project experience, from concept to construction, in mining, nuclear and oil and gas projects.

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