Pakistan Quake Triggers Massive Offshore Gas Release

Pakistan is known to have significant natural gas deposits trapped in the form of methane hydrates in sedimentary rocks off the coast of Baluchistan. Tragic as yesterday's earthquake is in terms of loss of human life, it may also have triggered the release of substantial amount of gas which pushed up a new island in the Arabian sea. A team of scientists from the National Institute of Oceanography in Karachi will visit the site this week to investigate it.

In a study published online in the journal Nature Geoscience and reported recently by New York Times, European researchers said that an underwater quake off Pakistan nearly 70 years ago likely fractured seafloor sediments and created pathways for the release of methane gas which still continues to bubble up from below. The researchers say the phenomenon may be widespread enough that climate scientists should take it into account when estimating the amounts of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.

Dr. David Fischer, the lead author of the study, told New York Times: “The quake broke open gas-hydrate sediments and the free gas underneath migrated to the surface.” The hydrates themselves did not dissolve. “They remain there,” he said.

While the existence of offshore methane hydrate deposits has long been known in many parts of the world, it's only recently that Japan demonstrated that natural gas can be produced commercially from such deposits.

Methane hydrate is also known by other names such as methane clathrate, hydromethane or methane ice. This last name relates to the fact that it is an ice-like crystalline substance, basically, frozen methane. Methane hydrate is a naturally occurring phenomenon that can be found in soft sediments in Arctic environments. It can be extensively found in the uppermost few hundred meters of slope and rise sediments in continental margins where the right temperature and pressure conditions are present.



Methane hydrates have been discovered on the Atlantic and Pacific margins of both North and South America, especially at equatorial latitudes. They are also found off the coast of Canada, Alaska, off the West coast of Norway, the Black Sea and off the coast of Pakistan. Smaller fields have been discovered off the coast of New Zealand and Antarctica, according to Oceaflores.

One cubic meter of hydrate contains 164 cubic meters of gas, once the gas is released, it expands to more than 150 times the original volume. As a consequence, methane hydrate reserves are thought to contain more than twice as much fuel energy as all currently known fossil fuel reserves.

Methane hydrate is not yet ready for prime time as a substantial source of energy. However, it could become commercially viable in the future for Pakistan if the Japanese succeed in their efforts.  It could be another significant energy revolution similar to the shale revolution now unfolding in America. Pakistan is blessed with both-shale and methane hydrate-in huge quantities enough to fuel the national economy for a long time.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Methane Hydrates in Pakistan

Affordable Fuel for Pakistan's Electricity 

Pakistan Needs Shale Gas Revolution

US Census Bureau's International Stats  

Pakistan's Vast Shale Gas Reserves

US AID Overview of Pakistan's Power Sector 

US Can Help Pakistan Overcome Energy Crisis

Abundant and Cheap Coal Electricity

US Dept of Energy Report on Shale Gas

Pakistan's Twin Energy Crises

Pakistan's Electricity Crisis

Pakistan's Gas Pipeline and Distribution Network

Pakistan's Energy Statistics

US Department of Energy Data

Electrification Rates By Country 

CO2 Emissions, Birth, Death Rates By Country

China Signs Power Plant Deals in Pakistan

Pakistan Pursues Hydroelectric Projects

Pakistan Energy Industry Overview

Energy from Thorium

Comparing US and Pakistani Tax Evasion

Pakistan's Oil and Gas Report 2010

Circular Electricity Debt Problem

International CNG Vehicles Association

Rare Earths at Reko Diq?

Lessons From IPP Experience in Pakistan

Correlation Between Human Development and Energy Consumption

Comments

Riaz Haq said…
Pakistan’s exclusive economic zone has grown by 150 nautical miles, adding around 50,000 square kilometres of international waters to its territory.
A United Nations commission has accepted Pakistan’s claim for extension of its continental shelf limits from 200 nautical miles to 350 nautical miles, according to a statement issued by the Pakistan Navy on Friday. “This adds over 50,000 sq kms of continental shelf to the existing 240,000 sq kms of EEZ under Pakistan’s jurisdiction,” its added.
Pakistan now enjoys exclusive rights over the seabed and subsoil resources, allowing it to drill for petroleum or lay submarine cables or pipelines in the added area.
Article 76 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea allows coastal states to extend their continental shelf beyond 20 nautical miles. However, the state is required to prove its case through technical data to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf – a body of 21 experts in geology, geophysics, hydrography and related disciplines.
In 2005, the navy and the National Institute of Oceanography with the science and technology ministry had started this project. After years of processing technical data, a submission was made to the UN on April 30, 2009.
A seven-member commission after over a year-long scrutiny, adopted the recommendations for extension of the country’s continental shelf. Pakistan’s delegation gave the final presentation on March 10. The UN has now announced the adoption of Pakistan’s claim.
The navy statement termed the decision a landmark in the country’s history which would bring vast economic benefits through the exploitation of extensive natural resources.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/856716/territorial-waters-pakistans-sea-grows-by-50000-sq-kms/
Riaz Haq said…
The rapidly populating coastal region from the Gulf to Pakistan faces a huge tsunami risk

That tsunamis can cause death and devastation has become painfully clear over the past two decades. On Boxing Day, 2004, a magnitude 9 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra caused waves several metres high to devastate the Indian Ocean – killing more than 230,000 people in 14 countries. In 2011, another magnitude 9 earthquake, this time off Japan, produced waves up to 20 metres in height, flooding the Fukushima nuclear reactor. It killed more than 15,000 people.

A new study, published in Geophysical Journal International, by my colleagues and me suggests that a 1,000km long fault at the northern end of the Arabian Sea may pose a similar threat.

The Makran, as the southern coastal region of Iran and Pakistan is known, is a subduction zone. In such regions, one of the Earth’s tectonic plates is dragged beneath another, forming a giant fault known as a “megathrust”. As the plates move past each other, they can get stuck, causing stress to build up. At some point the stress becomes high enough that the megathrust breaks in an earthquake.

This was exactly what caused the Sumatra 2004 and Tohoku 2011 earthquakes. When a megathrust moves suddenly, the whole seafloor is offset and the water has to move out of the way over a huge area. This sets off waves with particular characteristics that can cross entire oceans: tsunamis. The phenomenon, along with their potentially large size, makes subduction zone earthquakes particularly dangerous.

https://theconversation.com/the-rapidly-populating-coastal-region-from-the-gulf-to-pakistan-faces-a-huge-tsunami-risk-75569

But just because a part of a subduction zone produces earthquakes doesn’t mean that the whole megathrust can move in one go. We often see that stress builds up at different rates on different parts of the fault, with some parts sliding smoothly past each other. How much of a megathrust can move in one go is important because it determines the size of the resulting earthquake. The amount that the Makran megathrust can move in earthquakes has been a longstanding question, but the hostile climate and challenging politics of the region have made research there difficult.

We know that the eastern part of the Makran megathrust (in Pakistan) can produce large earthquakes. A magnitude 8.1 quake off the coast of western Pakistan in 1945 caused a tsunami which killed about 300 people along the coasts of Pakistan and Oman. There have been several smaller earthquakes on the megathrust since, including a magnitude 6 in February this year.

If the western part of the Makran (in Iran) also produces earthquakes – and the whole Makran megathrust were to move in one go – it could produce a magnitude 9 earthquake, similar to those in Sumatra and Tohoku.

However, we have never actually recorded a subduction earthquake in this part of Makran. In fact, there are only records of one candidate quake from 1483 – and the actual location of this is disputed. But it’s important to keep in mind that just because we haven’t seen an earthquake doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be one – particularly since the intervals between earthquakes are often hundreds or thousands of years. Historically, not many people have lived in the remote Iranian Makran, a desert which killed Alexander the Great’s army. So earthquakes might simply not have been documented.

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