 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Many Visitors to the GHASTLI Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)'s GHASTLI (Gas Hydrate and Sediment Testing Laboratory Instrument) laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, has been attracting numerous visitors. On November 1, Shin'ya Nishio (Institute of Technology, Shimizu Corp., Tokyo), Eiji Ogisako (Shimizu Corp.), and Tatsuya Yokoyama (Oyo Corp., Saitama, Japan) visited GHASTLI to learn how gas hydrates can be created within sediment in a laboratory setting that mimics natural conditions. They are beginning a program to determine the physical properties of mixtures of gas hydrate and sediment. Their results will be used to model gas-hydrate behavior before and after conducting in situ dissociation experiments to recover the trapped methane in deposits offshore Japan. On November 4, Devinder Mahajan (and his son Monaj) of Brookhaven National Laboratory visited GHASTLI to discuss laboratory testing of sediment containing natural and synthesized gas hydrates. The USGS and Brookhaven are beginning a joint collaboration on studying how gas hydrate interacts with host sediment on a pore-size scale, using the Brookhaven Synchrotron Microbeam X-ray Computed Microtomography (CMT) complex. Results will be used to construct a simple gas-hydrate-dissociation model for recovering methane from natural sources. During the Gas Hydrates Planning Meeting on November 20-22, Barbara Moore of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Undersea Research Program (NURP) visited GHASTLI to see the USGS' configuration. Barbara oversees gas-hydrate-research grants from NURP to the academic community. Finally, on November 26, Chuck Taylor, who is in charge of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s gas-hydrate research at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Pittsburgh, PA, visited GHASTLI to discuss collaborating on gas-hydrate/sediment testing. DOE expects to complete construction of a 6-liter chamber for conducting experiments on synthetic gas-hydrate samples. Chuck is interested in both interlaboratory calibration experiments and gas-hydrate physical properties.
|
 |
in this issue:
Adriatic Sea Sediment-Transport Cruise Assateague Island Vegetation Mapping Field-Testing New Portable Drilling System Woods Hole Field Center Open House St. Petersburg Field Center Open House Fourth-Graders Tour St. Petersburg Field Center
Planning Gas-Hydrates Research Science and Politics in Ecosystem Decisions
Louisiana Coastal-Restoration Advisory Board Air Medical Transport Center Tour |
|||||||||||||||||
U. S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
previous story
cover story:
