Distribution and classification of pockmarks on the seabed around western Scotland
Abstract
Pockmarks are seabed depressions that represent primary evidence of rapid biogenic/thermogenic gas build up and fluid release from seabed sediments to the water column. We use a Geographical Information System (GIS) to analyse multibeam echo-sounder bathymetric data and use a range of semi-automated tools to map seabed pockmarks in fjords and adjacent coastal waters around western Scotland. We map 1019 individual pockmarks in 12 different hydrographic areas covering ca. 2019 km2. We use morphological metrics and statistical procedures to classify and analyse the variety of pockmark forms. A k-means clustering algorithm identifies three classes of pockmark morphology: deep, elongate and regular. The recognition of separate pockmark classes could aid understanding of their age, activity and origin. This work presents the first detailed mapping of pockmark fields in Scottish west coast waters and highlights the use of pockmarks as an indicator of the quantity, mobility and fate of stored carbon.
Citation
Audsley , A , Bradwell , T , Howe , J A & Baxter , J M 2019 , ' Distribution and classification of pockmarks on the seabed around western Scotland ' , Journal of Maps , vol. 15 , no. 2 , pp. 807-817 . https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2019.1676320
Publication
Journal of Maps
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1744-5647Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of Journal of Maps. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Description
This project is funded by Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and The University of Stirling with additional funding from the Scottish Association for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES).Collections
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