Gas hydrates and salt are ubiquitous in many marine sedimentary basins and are important to carbon cycling, slope stability, and as a potential energy source. We study their occurrences in sedimentary basins with marine seismic data, logs, and cores, and their potential role in submarine landslides. We work closely with Dr. Ann Cook and collaborators at UT Austin and Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Publications (* indicates graduate student advisee or post-doc)
*Portnov, A., A. E. Cook, M. Heidari, D.E. Sawyer, M. Santra, and M. Nikolinakou, Salt-driven evolution of a gas hydrate reservoir in Green Canyon, Gulf of Mexico, (in press; preliminary version published online): AAPG Bulletin, doi:10.1306/10151818125.
*Hillman, J.T., A.E. Cook, D.E. Sawyer, H.M. Kucuk, and D.S. Goldberg, (2017), The Character and Amplitude of ‘Discontinuous’ Bottom-Simulating Reflections in Marine Seismic Data, Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 459, 157-169, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2016.10.058.
Flemings, P.B., R. Boswell, T. S. Collett, A. E. Cook, D. Divins, M. Frye, G. Guerin, D. S. Goldberg, A. Malinverno, K. Meazell, J. Morrison, T. Pettigrew, S. C. Philips, M. Santra, D. E. Sawyer, W. Shedd, C. Thomas, K. You, 2017, GOM2: Prospecting, Drilling and Sampling Coarse-Grained Hydrate Reservoirs in the Deepwater Gulf of Mexico, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Gas Hydrates, Denver, CO, June 25-30, 2017.
*Akinci, L. and D.E. Sawyer, (2015), Chapter 39: Salt Diapirism and Slope Failure in the Carolina Trough, Eastern North American Margin, in proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Submarine Mass Movements and Their Consequences, 2015.
