Seismic Indicators of Potential Gas Hydrate Manifestations in the Black Sea

Gas hydrates in the Black Sea are an important object of marine geological and geophysical studies. Their identification from seismic data remains a challenging task, because related indicators may be weakly expressed, discontinuous or masked by marine noise and the complex structure of the sedimentary sequence. The aim of this study is to analyse seismic indicators of potential gas hydrate manifestations using marine multi-channel seismic reflection profile V-2 from the northwestern part of the Black Sea as an example. The seismic measurements were carried out by the S. I. Subbotin Institute of Geophysics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine during marine geophysical investigations on board the research vessel Professor Vodyanytskyi. The observations were conducted within the State Special Research Program “Comprehensive evaluation of the current state and a forecast of the dynamics of the marine environment and resources of the Azov-Black Sea Basin”. The interpretation focuses on indirect features of hydrate-bearing or gas-saturated sediments, including bottom-simulating-reflector-like geometry, polarity changes, amplitude anomalies, reduced-reflectivity zones and high-amplitude events. The profile was processed using Seismic Unix to improve signal quality and prepare the section for preliminary interpretation. The processing workflow included geometry assignment, muting of early arrivals, band-pass filtering, automatic gain control, normal moveout correction, sorting by common depth points and stacking.As a result, the noisy initial wavefield was transformed into a more ordered stacked time section. The obtained section demonstrates better continuity of reflecting horizons and clearer amplitude variations. These results provide a basis for identifying possible gas hydrate-related features along profile V-2. At the same time, the identified features remain indirect indicators and require further velocity analysis, seismic attribute analysis and comparison with regional geological data.