NATURGASS

A total of 37 gas flares have been identified in a 325 km2 area northeast of Kvitøya. Most of the flares occur in the western part of the area. Many occur along a NNW-SSE trend, indicating that they may be sourced from deep-seated NNW-SSE trending faults.
Sedimentary bedrock beneath a thin cover of soft sediments is indicated in a small depression in the western part of the study area, where we observe crag and tail structures and outcropping strata.
Very few pockmarks occur in the investigated area, and the pockmarks observed are small and shallow.

This study was carried out using multibeam echo sounder data collected during Mareano surveys in 2013. The data from the surveys have been processed and interpreted to identify natural gas seeps, visible as gas flares, in the water column data. The data is also used for extracting bathymetry and backscatter.
The study area lies on the Bjarmeland platform area in the southern Barents Sea, mainly over the Polarrev High with a small part lying in the Kong Karl Platform and Bjarmeland Platform. The water depth is shallow and ranges from 150 to 225 m.