Category: Recent Activity

Iodine-131 (t1/2 = 8.04 d) is widely used in nuclear medicine, primarily to treat hyperthyroidism and thyroid cancer, with an annual average of 188 treatments per million people in developed countries. The administered dose of Iodine-131 (∼0.1−1 and 4−8 Gbq for hyperthyroidism and thyroid cancer, respectively) is metabolized by patients and eliminated from the body mostly in urine. In the United States, patient excreta are exempt… Read more »

Sediment organic carbon composition and provenance have been extensively studied in the Gulf of Mexico. Generally, inputs of terrestrially-derived organic carbon dominate near shore sediments and decrease with distance offshore where water column phytoplankton dominate contributions to shallow sediments. For this study shallow sediment and porewater samples were collected from Atwater Valley, Texas-Louisiana Shelf, Gulf of Mexico near a seafloor mound feature identified in geophysical surveys as… Read more »

The Chatham Rise is located offshore of New Zealand’s South Island. Vast areas of the Chatham Rise are covered in circular to elliptical seafloor depressions that appear to be forming through a bathymetrically controlled mechanism, as seafloor depressions 2–5 km in diameter are found in water depths of 800–1100 m. High-resolution P-Cable 3D seismic data were acquired in 2013 across one of these depressions. The seafloor… Read more »

Richard Coffin, co-founder of Strategic Carbon LLC, has been contracted to travel to China to present a strategy for environmental assessment and remediation at the Emergency Response and Management in the Oil and Gas Industry Conference in Beijing, China, July 26-29, 2015. His presentation, “Technological Protocol for Offshore and Coastal Assessment,” is based on work completed during the Valdez oil spill and harbor remediation at U.S…. Read more »

From Breaking Energy: Methane hydrates are getting increased attention as a major new source of clean hydrocarbon energy. These enormous deposits of natural gas have never been developed commercially, but research and development has been promising, and expectations are that the gas could begin coming to market within a decade. Known as flammable ice, methane hydrates are molecules of gas contained in an ice matrix found in… Read more »

From The Island University news: Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Researcher Shares Renewable Energy Expertise at International Fiery Ice Workshop CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – An Island University professor recently returned from India where he coordinated and co-organized the 2014 Fiery Ice, 9th International Methane Hydrate R&D Workshop. Dr. Richard Coffin, Chair of the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, was in Hyderabad, India,… Read more »

The majority of coastal sediment carbon cycling studies have focused on contributions from autochthonous photosynthetic marine and allocthonous terrigenous inputs. However, hydrocarbons produced within deep sediment through thermochemical and microbiological conversions can significantly contribute to cycling of carbon, especially in shallower sediments and water column. Stable carbon isotope ratios indicative of petroleum and methane (CH4) origins are found in bacterioplankton biomarkers. In a related study in… Read more »

Strategic Carbon met with geohazard specialists at Shell International Exploration and Production (www.shell.us) in Houston, Texas. An initial discussion and presentation focused on SC’s ability to apply geochemical assessment of mining system platform stability and environmental impacts. A November meeting is planned to further discuss application of the SC approach for geochemical surveys. SC also met in October with geological and geochemical experts at Anadarko (www.anadarko.com)… Read more »

Strategic Carbon-developed plans for the exploration of methane hydrate resources off the south coast of China led to a series of meetings with senior management and technical experts from the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) (www.cnoocltd.com), one of the world’s 50 largest oil companies. The initial meeting was held in Anchorage, Alaska with SC Founder Dr. Richard Coffin and included an organizing representative ShuQi Zhang… Read more »

An expedition conducted on the USCG Polar Sea during August of 2009 explored the Alaskan Shelf of the Beaufort Sea to address the sediment methane sources, the potential for contribution to climate change and possible locations for energy exploration.  MITAS, lead by Dr. Richard Coffin, focused on spatial variation of methane in shallow sediments, the water column and flux to the atmosphere.  Scientists from the United States, Germany, and… Read more »