Effects of bottom water warming and sea level rise on Holocene hydrate dissociation and mass wasting along the Norwegian-Barents Continental Margin

Abstract

Gas hydrate (GH) stability modeling results explain why some major Holocene submarine landslides along the Norwegian-Barents margin could have been triggered by GH dissociation during the early to middle Holocene, not during the lowest sea levels of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Our model results show that subbottom depths of 170-260 m below the pre-slide continental slope (ca. 350-475 m present water depth) must have passed out of gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) by 8.15 ka as the effect of warm bottom water inflow at 11 ka penetrated into the subbottom, overcoming the effects of pressure increase due to sea level rise (SLR). The component of local SLR due to the isostatic response to Fennoscandian deglaciation is shown to be relatively insignificant, particularly for the part of the upper continental slope where the slide probably began. The stability relations show that GH could have formed under the ice sheet before deglaciation, and below deeper shelf areas after sea levels began to rise, but before significant warming near the GHSZ base. To the extent water deeper than 800 m has remained cold (-1° to 0°C) since LGM times, the GHSZ continued to thicken in deep water and GH dissociation could not have triggered Holocene failure in that regime. The present distribution of GH stability is limited to water depths greater than about 400 m in the Storegga slide area, and the thickness of the GHSZ increases with water depth.