Hydroacoustic methodology for detection, localization, and quantification of gas bubbles rising from the seafloor at gas seeps from the eastern Black Sea

Detailed acoustic investigation of bubble streams rising from the seafloor were conducted during R/V Meteor cruise M72/3a at a deep submarine hydrocarbon seep environment. The area is located offshore Georgia (eastern part of the Black Sea) at a water depth between 840 m and 870 m. The sediment echosounder Parasound DS-3/P70 was used for detecting bubbles in the water column that causes strong backscatter in the echographs (flares''). Employing the swath echsounder Kongsberg EM710 flares in the water column were mapped along the entire swath width of approximately 1000 m at high spatial resolution. The exact location of the flares could be extracted manually. Subsequently, the horizontally looking sonar Kongsberg digital telemetry MS1000 mounted on a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) was utilized to quantify the flux of bubbles. A model was developed that is based on the principle of finding the acoustic mass'' in order to quantify the bubble flux at various seeps. The acoustic approach from the backscatter data of the ROV sonar resulted in bubble fluxes in the range of 0.01 to 5.5 L/min (corresponding to 0.037 to 20.5 mol CH4/min) at in situ conditions (similar to 850 m water depth, similar to 9 degrees C). Independent flux estimations using a funnel-shaped device showed that the acoustic model consistently produced lower values but the offset is less than 12%. Furthermore, the deviation decreased with increasing flux rates. A field of bubble streams was scanned three times from different directions in order to reveal the reproducibility of the method. Flux estimations yielded consistent fluxes of about 2 l/min (7.4 mol CH4/min) with variations of less than 10%. Although gas emissions have been found at many sites at the seafloor in a range of geological settings, the amount of escaping gas is still largely unknown. With this study presenting a novel method of quantifying bubble fluxes employing a horizontally looking sonar system, it is intended to contribute to the global effort of better constraining bubble fluxes at deep-sea settings.