Factors influencing the porosity of gas hydrate bearing sediments

Porosity is a key parameter in calculating the velocity of gas hydrate bearing sediments and quantifying the amount of gas hydrate. The variation of porosity is affected by many factors. The influences of different factors on porosity are distinct. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the main factors that affect the overall and local change of porosity in marine sediments where gas hydrate was sampled. Porosity logs were collected from ODP Leg 164, Blake Ridge, ODP Leg 204, Hydrate Ridge, and IODP expedition 311, Cascadia Margin. Based on the characteristic of porosity variation in depth, porosity was divided into three components: low frequency component, middle frequency component, and high frequency component. The factors influencing each component were discussed. From the analysis, we observed that the porosity of unconsolidated sediment was very high, and the decreasing trend of low frequency component versus depth was affected by compaction. In addition, the initial porosity and slope of low frequency component variation were affected by the content of fine grain and geothermal gradient respectively. The middle component could reflect the variation of lithology, which was affected by the content variation of different sized grains and gas hydrate. The high frequency component was affected by the frequent change of grain size. The existence of volcanic ash-rich sand caused a high value to the high frequency component. The results are applicable to porosity evaluation in gas hydrate bearing sediments.