Exploring and Monitoring of Methane Hydrate Deposits

Relatively, recently, in the last 20 years, it was discovered that methane hydrate (MH) deposits are globally distributed in the permafrost and oceans. Before 1960s, when first deposits were discovered in Siberian permafrost, former USSR, it was believed that MH can occur only in laboratory conditions or in vast parts of the Universe. Presently, it is presumed that this solid crystalline compounds in which CH
₄
molecules occupies the water ice lattices (nominal chemical formula of MH is C
₄
H
₆₂
O
₂₃
) can serve as an energy source favorably to the all of the world remaining conventional hydrocarbon sources. Moreover, MH deposits can become vulnerable to climate changes, which were already occurring in geological past with tremendous consequences for the global life on earth. Thus, further development of advanced techniques is needed to enhance our abilities to better characterize, quantify, and monitor MH deposits. In this paper presented, 14-MeV neutrons with associated alpha particle imaging technique were used to quantify the amount of MH in the sample.