Characterization of seafloor pockmark seepage of hydrocarbons employing fractal: A case study from the western continental margin of India

Multifractal Approach for Seafloor Characterization

“…This may be due to the presence of shell materials along with coarse sediments and the changes in the seafloor roughness at the textural level caused by bottom currents (Fig. 1) [9], [11]. Such changes at the textural level can only be notably detected in the backscatter data as compared to the bathymetry data.…”

“…The important morphological aspects of the study area have been investigated in detail, and 112 pockmarks related to the seepages were identified from the seafloor maps generated using ArcGIS [9]. The backscatter and bathymetry image blocks having 400 x 400 pixels, were classified according to the degree of seepage based on the backscatter strength as well as fractal dimension (determined using box-dimension technique) [11]. The analyses carried over each gray tone image blocks (with digital numbers ranging 0 to 255) suggest that the area with very high seepage has higher fractal dimension and lower dimension with very low seepage.…”

“…The investigations were related to underlying geology, pockmark occurrences, overlying sediment texture, and sediment movements due to strong influences of monsoonal bottom currents. Thereafter utilizing the method proposed by Seuront and Spilmont [10], Dandapath et al [11] had noted the possible multifractal behavior of the MBES backscatter and bathymetry image data. Therefore, the present study involves quantitative estimation of the multifractal parameters from seafloor seepage to enhance the understanding of the processes in the area (WCMI).…”