Prototype development of an apparatus to locate and map sea floor petroleum seepages. Final technical report

The objective of the grant was to design, build, and test two autonomous instruments to measure vertical profiles of electrical potential in sea floor sediments. The objectives were fully met when the instruments were successfully deployed in 1,800 feet of water at known petroleum seepage sites in the Gulf of Mexico. The instruments were proven to be able to measure and record signals known to be appropriate to sediments altered by seepage. Two known seepage sites were visited on September 18th and 20th, 1996. At the first, a small-scale instrument capable of measuring 60 cm into the sediment was repeatedly emplaced by the manipulator arm of a research submarine, along a sea floor traverse. Further, the large-scale instrument, having a probe 3.3 m in length, was deployed by steel cable from the ship and emplaced in the sediment under gravity. Both successfully recorded data from multiple electrodes, revealing the expected negative potentials (Eh values as low as {minus}230 mV) at, and close to, the sediment-water interface, instead of at the normal depths of 3 to 4 m