• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.890-893
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• 2012

Gas hydrates are solid crystal structures formed by enclathration of gaseous guest species into 3-dimensional lattice structure of hydrogen-bonded water molecules. These compounds can be potentially used as an energy storage/transportation medium because they can hold a large amount of gas in a small volume of the solid phase. In addition, huge amount of natural gas, buried in seabeds or permafrost region in the form of the solid hydrate, is regarded as a future energy source. In this study, synthesized natural gas, whose composition is 90.0 mol% of methane, 7.0 mol% of ethane, and 3.0 mol% of propane, was used to identify formation behaviors of natural gas hydrates for the purpose of applying the gas hydrate to a storage/transportation medium of natural gas. According to the experimental results obtained by means of the solid-state NMR and high-resolution powder XRD methods, it is found that formed natural gas hydrates have crystal structure of the structure-II hydrate, and that methane occupies both small and large cages, while the others only occupy large ones. In addition, both the NMR spectroscopy and the gas chromatograph showed that there exists preferential occupation among the natural gas components during the hydrate formation. Compositional changes after the hydrate formation revealed that the preferential occupation is in order of propane, ethane, and methane (propane is the most preferential guest species when forming natural gas hydrates).

• The Korean Journal of Petroleum Geology
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• v.7 no.1_2 s.8
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• pp.1-6
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• 1999

Natural gas hydrate, a solid compound of natural gas (mainly methane) and water in the low temperature and high pressure, is widely distributed in permafrost region and deep sea sediments. Gas hydrate stability field (GHSF), which corresponds to the conditions of a stable existence of solid gas hydrate without dissociation, depends on temperature, pressure, and composition of gas and interstitial water. Gas hydrate-saturated sediment are easily recognized by the bottom simulating reflector (BSR), a strong-amplitude sea bottom-mimic reflector in seismic profiles. It is known that BSR is associated with the basal boundary of the GHSF, The purpose of this study is to define the GHSF and its occurrence in the southwestern part of Ulleung Basin, East Sea. The hydrothermal gradient is measured using the expandable bathythermograph (XBT) and the geothermal gradient data are utilized from previous drilling results for the adjacent area. By the laboratory work using methane and NaCl $3.0 wt{\%}$ solution, it is shown that the equilibrium pressures of the gas hydrate reach to 2,920.2 kPa at 274.15 K and to 18,090 kPa at 289.95 K for the study area. Consequently, it is interpreted that the lower boundary of the GHSF is about 210 m beneath 400-m-deep sea bottom and about 480 m beneath 1,100-m-deep sea bottom. The resultant boundary is well matched with the depth of the BSR obtained from the seismic data analysis for the study area.

• The Korean Journal of Petroleum Geology
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• v.7 no.1_2 s.8
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• pp.19-27
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• 1999

Korea, an energy-resources-poor country, imports $100{\%}$ of its, oil and, natural gas supply, which accounts for the greater part of its total primary requirements. One of the important task of the government is diversification of available energy resources such as oil and natural gas. Natural gas hydrate, which is non-conventional types of natural gas, distributes worldwide, especially in marine and permafrost. It would become a target of natural gas resources in the near future. Especially sigrificant amount of hydrates are expected to be located in the East Sea around Korea Peninsular. This paper describes about a multi-year overall project framework of basic research and technological development of natural gas hydrate in Korea focused on the interpretation of the seismic survey, the characteristics and physical properties of the natural gas hydrate, and the utilizable technology of natural gas hydrates from the status of research and development of the world.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.163-170
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• 2006

The shortage of proven hydrocarbon reserves has resulted in exploration progressing from the offshore into progressively deeper water of the continental shelf. Despite the success of seismic acquisition at ever greater depths, there are marine geological terrenes in which the interpretation of seismic data is difficult, such regions dominated by scattering or high reflectivity that is characteristic of carbonate reefs, volcanic cover and submarine permafrost. A marine controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) method has recently been applied to the oil and gas exploration thanks to its high-resistivity characteristics of the hydrocarbon. In particular, this method produces better results in terms of sensitivity under the deep water environment rather than the shallow water. Only in the last five years has the relevance of CSEM been recognized by oil companies who now use it to help them make exploration drilling decisions. Initial results are most promising and several contractors now offer magnetotelluric and CSEM services.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.52-67
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• 2020

Recently, the Arctic has been exposed to snow-covered land due to melting permafrost every year, and the Korea Geographic Information Institute(NGII) provides polar spatial information service by establishing spatial information of the polar region. However, there is a lack of spatial information on vegetation sensitive to climate change. This research used a multi-temporal Sentinel-2 image to perform land cover classification of the Ny-Ålesund in Arctic Svalbard. In the pre-processing step, 10 bands and 6 vegetation spectral index were generated from multi-temporal Sentinel-2 images. In image-classification step is consisted of extracting the vegetation area through 8-class land cover classification and performing the vegetation species classification. The image classification algorithm used Random Forest to evaluate the accuracy and calculate feature importance through Out-Of-Bag(OOB). To identify the advantages of multi- temporary Sentinel-2 for vegetation classification, the overall accuracy was compared according to the number of images stacked and vegetation spectral index. Overall accuracy was 77% when using single-time Sentinel-2 images, but improved to 81% when using multi-time Sentinel-2 images. In addition, the overall accuracy improved to about 83% in learning when the vegetation index was used additionally. The most important spectral variables to distinguish between vegetation classes are located in the Red, Green, and short wave infrared-1(SWIR1). This research can be used as a basic study that optimizes input characteristics in performing the classification of vegetation in the polar regions.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.73-84
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• 2021

Recently, interest in environmental issues is increasing worldwide due to abnormal climate phenomena caused by global warming. Global efforts are continuing to actively respond to climate change, but the dependence on fossil fuels is still high. In particular, a huge amount of fossil fuels and mineral resources are buried in the Arctic Circle, so development and construction projects are being actively pursued. Participation and cooperation in the development of Arctic resources (oil and gas resources) is one of the alternatives to domestic energy supply. Resource development in the Arctic Circle requires close review(Poor development environment and technical limitations due to extreme climate, environmental problems due to resource development, social impact, etc.) in advance compared to general resource development. In this pater, the laws and guidelines related to climate change to be considered were reviewed. when developing Arctic resources. In addition, the countermeasures against climate change applied in large-scale resource development projects in the Arctic were reviewed. It is expected that the results of the research and analysis of this study will be used to establish strategies to respond to new risk factors that influence the successful promotion and operation of the Arctic region resource development project.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.727-736
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• 2022

Ice wedges are subsurface ice mass structures that formed mainly by freezing precipitation with airborne dust and surrounding soil particles flowed through the active layer into the cracks growing by repeating thermal contractions in the deeper permafrost layer over time. These ice masses characteristically contain high concentrations of solutes and solids. Because of their unique properties and distribution, the possibility of harnessing ice wedges as an alternative archive for reconstructing paleoclimate and paleoenvironment has been recently suggested despite limited studies. It is imperative to preserve the physicochemical properties of the ice wedge (e.g., solute concentration, mineral particles) without any potential alteration to use it as a proxy for reconstructing the paleo-information. Thawing the ice wedge samples is prerequisite for the assessment of their physicochemical properties, during which the paleo-information could be unintentionally altered by any methodological artifact. This study examined the effect of thawing conditions and procedures on the physicochemical properties of solutes and solid particles in ice wedge samples collected from Cyuie, East Siberia. Four different thawing conditions with varying temperatures (4 and 23℃) and oxygen exposures (oxic and anoxic) for the ice wedge sample treatment were examined. Ice wedge samples thawed at 4℃ under anoxic conditions, wherein biological activity and oxidation were kept to a minimum, were set as the standard thawing conditions to which the effects of temperature and oxygen were compared. The results indicate that temperature and oxygen exposure have negligible effects on the physicochemical characteristics of the solid particles. However, the chemical features of the solution (e.g., pH, electric conductivity, alkalinity, and concentration of major cations and trace elements) at 4℃ under oxic conditions were considerably altered, compared to those measured under the standard thawing conditions. This study shows that the thawing condition of ice wedge samples can affect their chemical features and thereby the geochemical information therein for the reconstruction of the paleoclimate and/or paleoenvironment.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.666-671
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• 2012

Gas hydrates are inclusion compounds formed when small-sized guest molecules are incorporated into the well defined cages made up of hydrogen bonded water molecules. Since large masses of natural gas hydrates exist in permafrost regions or beneath deep oceans, these naturally occurring gas hydrates in the earth containing mostly $CH_4$ are regarded as future energy resources. The heat of dissociation is one of the most important thermal properties in exploiting natural gas hydrates. The accurate and direct method to measure the dissociation enthalpies of gas hydrates is to use a calorimeter. In this study, the high pressure micro DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimeter) was used to measure the dissociation enthalpies of methane, ethane, and propane hydrates. The accuracy and repeatability of the data obtained from the DSC was confirmed by measuring the dissociation enthalpy of ice. The dissociation enthalpies of methane, ethane, and propane hydrates were found to be 54.2, 73.8, and 127.7 kJ/mol-gas, respectively. For each gas hydrate, at given pressures the dissociation temperatures which were obtained in the process of enthalpy measurement were compared with three-phase (hydrate (H) - liquid water (Lw) - vapor (V)) equilibrium data in the literature and found to be in good agreement with literature values.