Carbon Storage Survey Update

December 8, 2024

In March 2024, Research Professor Tip Meckel led a marine seismic acquisition project offshore of San Luis Pass on south Galveston Island. The project is part of the ongoing carbon storage surveying research happening at the Gulf Coast Carbon Center at the Bureau of Economic Geology.

The researchers revisited a site where in 2013, Meckel and collaborators found shallow gas anomalies while collecting a high-resolution 3D seismic dataset. These gas anomalies are analogs for potential carbon dioxide (CO2) leakages from deep storage reservoirs that could be considered for CO2 emissions storage.

The data from the most recent survey, which was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, will allow for a 4D time lapse analysis of the gas. Meckel has used this type of analysis in a range of offshore carbon capture and storage projects, including pre-injection site assessment, risk reduction and monitoring.

Other UT participants involved with the seismic acquisition projection include Dallas Dunlap, a research scientist associate at the bureau; Dan Duncan, an engineering scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics; and graduate student Previna Arumugam