The presence of methane in the form of underwater gas-hydrates is proved in the Sea of Okhotsk

Today the vessel “Academician Lavrentiev” returns from its international expedition to the Seas of Okhotsk and Japan. It carried out new research of underwater depths that will help to find gas-hydrates.

Scientists have studied the underwater depths and the bottom of the seas looking at the content in water and the residues on the sea bed of methane, heavy hydrocarbons, helium, hydrogen and other gases.

The head of the expedition, a doctor of geologic and mineralogic sciences, professor, head of the geology and geophysics lab of the Pacific Oceanological Institute, A. Obzhirov, said last year a group of scientists found out gas-hydrates at 2 sites in the Gulf of Tatary and at 2 sites in the southern part of the western slant of the Kuril basin. The scientists registered more than 100 cases of the appearance of methane bubbles. Moreover, in the south of the Sea of Okhotsk a new mineral for this area has been found and the existence of the strongest expression of natural gas in the World Ocean has been proved. Geologists try to find the connection between the formation of gas- hydrates with the areas of breaks and seismic-tectonic activity.