Effects of sea states on seafloor compliance studies

Abstract

Gas hydrates affect the bulk physical properties of marine sediments, in particular, elastic parameters. Shear modulus is an important parameter for estimating the distribution of hydrates in the marine sediments. However, S-wave information is difficult to recover without proper datasets. Seafloor compliance, the transfer function between pressure induced by surface gravity waves and the associated seafloor deformation, is one of few techniques to study shear modulus in the marine sediments. The coherence between recorded time series of displacement and pressure provides a measure of the quality of the calculated transfer function, the seafloor compliance. Thus, it is important to understand how to collect high coherence datasets. Here we conducted a 10-month pilot experiment using broadband seismic sensors and differential pressure gauges. We found that data collected in shallow water depth and during rough seas gave high coherence. This study is the first time long-term data sets have been employed to investigate seafloor compliance data quality and its dependence on sea state. These results will help designing future large-scale compliance experiments to study anomalously high shear moduli associated with the presence of gas hydrate or cold vents, or alternatively anomalously low shear moduli, associated with partial melt and magma chamber.