Mud Volcanoes in the Barents Sea Could Open up New Prospects for Oil and Gas Exploration
The EXTREME24 expedition discovered 10 new mud volcanoes in the western part of the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway at a depth of 440-480 meters, Offshore reports
The team on board the research vessel Kronprins Haakon included Rune Mattingsdal, a geologist from the Norwegian Maritime Directorate (NOD), and the program was supervised by the University of Tromsø.
This was mainly done to further research on the Borealis mud volcano, the second one recorded on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Mud volcanoes are accumulations of clay or other fine-grained material that have leaked onto the seafloor of the earth’s surface, accompanied by gas, water, and sometimes oil.
The area surveyed was part of APA’s 2023 licensing round, where the team selected several mounds on the seafloor for further study thanks to the seismic imagery they acquired. The volcanoes were verified using multibeam echo sounding and ROVs.
Gas and sediment samples were collected from most mud volcanoes for biostratigraphic and geochemical analysis. The goal is to confirm the age of the mud and determine where gas and other potential hydrocarbons might be coming from, Mattingsdal said.
“Mud volcanoes around the world are often associated with hydrocarbon deposits and may therefore be of interest in connection with oil and gas exploration.”
