Abstract

Gas Hydrate Resource Assessment of the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf
Track: Petroleum
Authors: Matthew Frye, Kenneth Piper, John Schuenemeyer

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM; formerly the Minerals Management Service) is the U. S. Department of the Interior bureau that manages the nation's natural gas, oil, and other mineral resources on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). BOEM has recently developed a GIS-based assessment methodology to evaluate the resource potential of natural gas hydrate across the entire OCS, including the Alaskan, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific OCS margins. In this presentation we highlight the spatial components of the stochastic assessment model as developed for the Pacific OCS and describe the integration of these features with empirically-derived data. The adaptation of a GIS modeling environment allows for an aggregation of input attributes at a given location (such as water depth, sediment thickness, crustal age, depofacies) for introduction to the modeling environment, and a presentation of the model results in both map view and tabular format.