Abstract

A synthetic study has been conducted to quantify the effect of marine gas hydrates on mCSEM data and the factors which contribute to its sensitivity. The study confirmed that mCSEM sounding is feasible for shallow hydrates detection in deep sea environments. Results indicate high anomalous reading at short offsets, and shallow resistors are therefore easily identifiable. However, factors such as resistivity contrast, frequencies used in acquisition, size, geometry and volume of hydrates and the survey configuration will influence the sensitivity of EM signal towards its detection.