Geology & Geophysics PhD student, Bedanta Goswami, presented a poster at the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Natural Gas Hydrate Systems held at Hotel Galvez, Galveston, Texas, USA from March 23rd-28th, 2014. Bedanta presented his poster titled: “Resistivity Imaging of Gas Hydrates at the Vestnesa Ridge, West Svalbard Margin using marine CSEM”. He is a second year student working on estimating methane concentrations in Svalbard using marine controlled source electromagnetic (CSEM) data.
GRC was a small sized conference (136 people), with talks and activities lasting the entire day (7:30 AM to 9:30 PM) which facilitated plenty of relaxed interaction between all participants. The program of all the talks and posters presented during the 5 days can be found here. The talks were extremely interesting and presented gas hydrate research from various dimensions (exploration, production, climate impact studies, flow assurance, benthic community studies etc.) There was plenty of opportunity each day to discuss ideas – during breakfast, lunch, impromptu football matches at the beach, poster sessions, at the pool or Jacuzzi or even at the bar at the end of a long day. It was the perfect atmosphere to discuss science and exchange ideas on the work presented and obtain feedback from the so called dinosaurs of gas hydrate research (as they liked to call themselves). The best part of the experience was meeting all fellow research students from various universities who had a number of exciting topics and ideas for discussion during the event. A highly recommended conference for anyone working on or interested in gas hydrate research for the future!