caa a22 4500 463216334 CHVBK 20180405153157.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170326e20070601xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s00367-007-0070-6 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s00367-007-0070-6 Hovland M. Statoil, Forusbeen 50, 4035, Stavanger, Norway aut Discovery of prolific natural methane seeps at Gullfaks, northern North Sea [Elektronische Daten] [M. Hovland] The Gullfaks and Kvitebjørn fields are located on the North Sea Plateau (135m water depth), and on an ancient beach (135-190m) deposited during the sea-level lowstand during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). There are several continuous seeps of mainly methane gas, where large patches of Beggiatoa bacterial mats occur. The ‘Heincke' seep area, which is named after the German research vessel Heincke, has been targeted by scientists studying seep-associated processes and microbiology. The Gullfaks area has a long history of shallow gas and seepage. In 1980, well no. 34/10-10 had a blowout from a reservoir located 230m below seafloor. The active Heincke seep location has no topographic expression, probably because the seabed consists of dense sand and gravel. Extensive bacterial mats (Beggiatoa sp.) are found on the seafloor at this seep site. Organisms such as hermit crabs were seen ingesting pieces of such mat, indicating ‘trophic bypass,' where carbon derived directly from seeping methane is evidently feeding directly into higher trophic organisms. Ongoing and future research at this seep location in the North Sea can answer some important questions on the environmental impact of natural methane seeps on continental shelves. Springer-Verlag, 2007 Geo-Marine Letters Springer-Verlag 27/2-4(2007-06-01), 197-201 0276-0460 27:2-4<197 2007 27 367 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-007-0070-6 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-007-0070-6 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Hovland M. Statoil, Forusbeen 50, 4035, Stavanger, Norway aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Geo-Marine Letters Springer-Verlag 27/2-4(2007-06-01), 197-201 0276-0460 27:2-4<197 2007 27 367 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer