• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.133-145
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• 2003

Deep-sea surface sediments were collected using a multiple corer at 20 stations of Clarion-Clipperton fracture zone in the northeast equatorial Pacific to understand latitudinal and longitudinal variations of geotechnical properties. There was a distinct latitudinal variation of geotechnical properties in the study area. The northern sediments showed finer grain size, lower water content and porosity, higher bulk density and specific grain density, lower liquid limits and plastic limits than their southern counterparts. The northern sediments are classified into inorganic clays of low plasticity (fat clays) on plasticity charts and normal to active clay on activity chart, whereas, the southern sediments are classified into fine-grained, highly-plastic, inorganic and biogenic silt or organic clays on plasticity chart and normal to very active clay on activity chart. When shear strength are considered, the northern sediments were found to be in unconsolidated states, while the southern ones to be normal to over-consolidated states. These latitudinal variations in sediment characteristics are likely caused by differences in productivity of surface water that controls sediment compositions, sedimentation rates, and grain solubility.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.133-143
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• 2015

Gas hydrate is a solid substance composed of natural gas constrained in water molecules under low temperature and high pressure conditions. The existence of hydrates has been reported to be world-widely distributed, mainly at permafrost and deep ocean floor. Test productions of small amount of natural gas from the on-shore permafrost have been accomplished in U.S.A and Canada, but, world-first and the only production case from off-shore hydrate bearing sediments was in Nankai trough, Japan. In this study, we introduce key technologies in gas production from hydrates by analyzing the Japanese off-shore gas production project in Nankai trough in terms of depressurization- induced dissociation so as to utilize planned domestic gas production test in Ulleung basin.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.320-334
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• 2000

Deep-sea surface sediment were analyzed for their geotechnical properties, and the sediment samples were collected with a multiple-corer from 31 stations along the track line (131$^{\circ}$30'W, 5-12$^{\circ}$N) in the northeast equatorial Paciflc. Most of the sediments from the northern part (8-12$^{\circ}$N) showed typical properties of siliceous sediments, whereas the southern part (5-6$^{\circ}$N) showed calcareous characteristics due to high biogenic carbonate productivity in the surface waters, where its water depth was shallower than the carbonate compensation depth (CCD: 4,400 m). Geotechnical properties changed sharply at the boundary of 7$^{\circ}$N. Calcareous sediments from the southern part had low water contents, low porosity, low shear strength, high bulk density and high specific grain density, whereas siliceous sediments from the northern part attained high water content, high porosity, high shear strength, low bulk density and low specific grain density. Higher sediment activities were observed in the northern sediment samples than the southern sediment samples. The core samples of the northern sediments were divided into a semi-liquid upper layer and a consolidated lower layer with a boundary at 5-8 cm. These sediment samples showed a rapid increasing pattern along the downcore in original shear strength when an opposite trend was observed in the southern samples. The results showed that sediment variabilities in geotechnical properties between the northern and southern parts such as productivities of surface water, grain solubility due to water depth variation, sedimentation rate, erosion and redistribution of sediment, and combined sedimentary processes were distinctly different along the latitude.

• 한국해양학회지
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.92-100
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• 1986

Laboratory investigations of physical (density and porosity), acoustic (velocity and velocity anisotropy), and electrical (resistivity and resistivity anisotropy) properties in deep-sea carbonate sequences at DSDPsites 288 and 289 in the western equatorial Pacific were made and correlated as a function of diagenesis. Profile of resistivity shows almost a mirror image of velocity indicating that electrical resistivity can be a useful variable to determine the diagenetic stage. Some fluctuations in acoustic and electrical properties near the zones of cherty and siliceous limestones for both sites imply significant changes in pore geometry due to interbedded silica. The significantly reduced pore throat size by the presence of silica which provides excess calcium carbonate to adjacent pore spaces is partly responsible for several jumps in acoustic and electrical properties of the zones. These observed geophysical data are interpreted as the result of silica diagenesis influencing carbonate diagenesis.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.328-336
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• 2007

A piston core (587 cm long) was recovered from the upper slope of a seamount in the Korea Plateau. Three episodes of sedimentation were identified based on sedimentary facies, grain size distribution, carbonate constituents and initial $^{87}Sr/^{86}Sr$ ratio of carbonates. The lower part of the core, Unit I-a (core depth $465{\sim}587cm$) is composed of shallow marine carbonate sediments the deposited by storm surges, and is about $13{\sim}15Ma$ (Middle Miocene) based on $^{87}Sr/^{86}Sr$ initial ratio. This suggests that the depositional environment was relatively shallow enough to be influenced by storm activities. Unit I-b (core depth $431{\sim}465cm$) is mostly composed of turbidites, and Sr isotope ages of bivalves and planktonic formaminifera are about $11{\sim}14\;and\;6{\sim}13Ma$, respectively. This indicates that the Korea Plateau maintained shallow water condition until 11 Ma, and began to subside since then. However, planktonic foraminifera were deposited after 11 Ma and redeposited as turbidites as a mixture of planktonic foraminifera and older shallow marine carbonates about 6 Ma ago. Unit II (core depth $0{\sim}431cm$) is composed of pelagic sediments, and the Sr isotope age is younger than 1 Ma, thus the time gap is about 5 Ma at the unconformity. About 1 Ma ago, the Korea Plateau subsided down to a water depth of about 600 m. The sampling locality was intermittently influenced by debris flows and/or turbidity currents along the slope, resulting the deposition of re-transported coarse shallow marine and volcaniclastic sediments.

• Journal of the Korean Professional Engineers Association
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.26-31
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• 1979

The Natural Gas and petroleum have the same Origin, Namely, Ocean bottom deposits of the marine plant, plankton which are subdued to the biological action of the bacterium under the anaerobic circumstance, and changed to the hydrocarbon gas and oils. and such resources are appeared in the aqueous sedimentary rocks in the tertiary. There are three types of gas field, which are oil well gas field, structural gas field and water soluble gas field.

• Korean Journal of Mineralogy and Petrology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.165-173
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• 2020

The activity of living microorganism directly or indirectly affects to the biomineralization in sediments and rocks that display the unique biotic structure. Minerals in the biotic structures showed unique properties and bypass the thermodynamic and kinetic barriers. Therefore, investigations on the biotically induced microstructure is essential to identify the new mineral formation mechanism by analyzing crystal structures and morphology at a nano-scale. The significant implication as well as advantages of using scanning electron microscopy to characterize the biotic structures were discussed in this paper for the examples of hydrothermal vent area microbial mat and deep-sea ferromanganese crust sample.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.215-225
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• 1999

To study the vertical variations of major elements, trace elements and rare earth elements(REEs) contents in deep-sea sediments, six cores from Korea Deep-sea Environmental Study area(KODES) were analyzed. Topmost sediment layers of KODES area are divided into two Units; brown-colored and peneliquid Unit I and pale brown-colored and relatively solidified Unit II. Contents of major elements, REEs, Cu, Sr and Rb in each Unit are almost same, while contents of Mn, Ni and Co in Unit I are two or three times higher than those in Unit II. R-mode factor analysis represents that surface sediments are composed of alumino-silicate phase (AI-Ti-K-Mg-Fe-Rb-Ce), apatite phase (Ca-P-Cu-Sr-Trivalent Rare Earth Elements) and Mn-oxide phase(Mn-Ni-Co). Factor scores in silicate and apatite phases in each Unit are nearly same, whereas those in Mn-oxide phase in Unit I is higher than those in Unit II. While NilCu ratio in Unit I is two times higher than that in Unit II. We interprete the geochemical fractionation of Ni and Cu as a result that Ni can be remobilized in oxygen-depleted micro-environment in Units I and II and then easily reprecipitated in Unit I, while most of Cu supplied together with organic material is decomposed mostly in Unit I and sorbed into apatite.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.367-376
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• 2004

Macrobenthos were collected at 7 stations located from $5^{\circ}N$ to $10^{\circ}N$ with 1o interval along the longitude of $131^{\circ}W$ using a box corer with sampling area of $0.25\;m^2$ in July, 1999. In order to see the vertical distribution of macrobenthos in sediments, each subcore sample was divided into 5 layers with 1 cm interval up to 6 cm depth. Each subcore sample was sieved through 0.3 mm mesh screen and fixed with 10% Rose Bengal added formalin. A total of 22 faunal groups in 11 phyla were sampled and the average density was $959\;{\pm}\;584\;ind./m^2$. Foraminiferans comprised 34.8% of total specimens were the most abundant fauna, and followed by nematodes (27.5%), polychaete worms (15.7%), and benthic harpactoid copepods (10.4%). A latitudinal trend was shown in the distribution of macrobenthos; the maximum density of $1,832\;ind./m^2$ appeared at station N06 and the most poverished community occurred at station N09 with the density of $248\;ind./m^2$. The density of typical macrofaunal taxa except foraminiferans and nematods was $116\;ind./m^2$. In the vertical distribution of macrobenthos, more than 70% of macrobenthos occurred in the upper 2 cm layer, and upper 4 cm layer contained about 90% of macrofauna. Polychaete worms consisted of 22 families, and cirratulid and paraonid worms were dominant polychaete species. The prominant feeding guilds of polychaete worms were SDT (surface, descretely motile, tenaculate feeding) and SMX (surface, motile, non-jawed); they comprised more than 50% of polychaete abundance. These feeding guilds of polychaete worms suggests that the deep sea benthos should be well adapted the newly settled deposits from water column, but this should be clarified by the further studies.

• 한국해양학회지
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.248-257
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• 1994

Growth rates of two manganese nodules collected in the Korea Deep Ocean Study (KODOS-89) site in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zones in the central Equatorial Pacific have been estimated by employing uranium-series disequilibrium techniques to investigate the geochemical processes leading to the formation of deep-sea nodules. the growth rates estimated from the profiles of excess /SUP 230/Th activities and ratios of excess /SUP 230/Th to /SUP 232/Th to /SUP 232/Th are in the order of a few millimeters per million years. Growth rates at bottom-side of nodules are 2-3 times faster than those at top-sides. Diagenetic supply of manganese could explain the faster growth at the bottom-side of nodules.