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Hunting gas flares and launching a seafloor observatory west of Svalbard and in the Barents Sea aboard R/V Helmer Hanssen

Chief Scientist: Karin Andreassen

Introduction

The cruise was part of the Centre of Excellence(SFF) Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate Climate (CAGE) at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway. It was
partly supported by The Norwegian Petroleum Directory (NPD).

The cruise had the following scientific objectives:

  • Identification of gas seepage associated with assumed hydrocarbon reservoirs subcropping the sea floor due to erosion of overlying cap rocks.
  • Identification of gas seepage related to leakage along faults breaching the seafloor.
  • Acqusition of multibeam, subbottom profiler-, seismic data and samples of gas in water and sediments for cross disciplinary investigations by CAGE
  • Deployment of seafloor observatory and oceanographic studies west of Prins Kars Forland