Carbon Capture and Storage is a low carbon technology which captures the CO2 emitted during power generation, to securely and permanently store underground, for example within depleted oil and gas fields. Securely storing the CO2 within a reservoir requires a good knowledge of the physical properties of the overburden and the associated fluid pathways. During burial of sediments, the porosity of sediments decreases and fluids migrate vertically through chimney and pipe structures created by hydro-fracturing. In order to assess the leakage potential of a CO2 storage reservoir, it is critical to develop an understanding of the formation mechanisms and the longevity of these chimney and pipe structures. Seabed craters caused by erupting fluids, called pockmarks, provide natural analogues for studying the fluid pathways and the physical properties of chimney and pipe structures.

In 2017, a state of the art ocean bottom seismic survey was acquired around a natural gas escape zone, Scanner Pockmark, North Sea to gain knowledge about the physical processes related to gas escape from shallow sediments. The aim of this project is to determine the fine-scale velocity structure, and the physical properties of thin gas-charged layers and the sedimentary faulting that controls the fluid-flow.