Barents Sea mud volcanos could open new oil and gas exploration frontier
Offshore staff
OSLO, Norway – The EXTREME24 expedition has discovered 10 new mud volcanos in the western Barents Sea offshore Norway in water depths of 440-480 m.
The team onboard the Kronprins Haakon research vessel included Rune Mattingsdal, a geologist from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD), with the program supervised by the University of Tromsø.
This was mainly designed to perform further studies of the Borealis mud volcano, the second recorded on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Mud volcanos are accumulations of clay or other fine-grained material that has flowed out on to the sea floor of the earth’s surface, accompanied by gas, water and sometimes oil.
The area examined was part of the APA licensing round in 2023, with the team choosing several mounds on the seabed for further investigation, due to their seismic imaging. The volcanos were verified using multi-beam echo sounding and ROVs.
Gas and sediment samples were taken from most of the mud volcanos forbiostratigraphic and geochemical analyses. According to Mattingsdal, the aim is to confirm the age of the mud and to determine where the gas and potential other hydrocarbons might be coming from.
“The mud volcanos around the world are often associated with hydrocarbon deposits, and may therefore be of interest in connection with exploration for oil and gas.”
06.07.2024
