OTC-25705-MS

摘要: Turbidity currents pose a serious hazard to expensive oil and gas seafloor installations, especially in deep-water where mitigation, re-routing or repair is costly and logistically challenging. These sediment-laden flows are hazardous because they can be exceptionally powerful (up to 20 m/s), and can flow for long distances (> 100s km) over several days duration, causing damage over vast areas of seafloor. Even less powerful flows (~ 1-2 m/s) can damage seafloor equipment, or break strategically important submarine telecommunication cables. The consequences of turbidity currents impacting seafloor structures depends on the velocity, duration, direction of impact and, perhaps most crucially, the sediment concentration (or density) of the flow. While some recent studies have successfully monitored turbidity currents in deep-water, imaging flow properties close to the seafloor has proven problematic. We present innovative approaches to the quantification of the velocity and sediment concentration of dense near-bed layers that provide new insights into this important aspect of turbidity current flow.Firstly, we describe a novel experimental setup that is capable of measuring near-bed sediment concentration in dense (> 10% volume by concentration) flows. Density contrasts are measured using Electrical Resistivity Tomography–a technique initially developed for geophysical characterisation of subsurface reservoirs. Velocity is measured using Ultrasonic Doppler Velocity Profiling and concentration is characterized using an Ultra High Concentration Meter. Secondly, we outline some recently developed geophysical approaches for the quantification …