CO2GeoNet – Offshore Buoy for Monitoring Subaquatic CO2 Leakage

It is the aim to carry out a feasibility study for automatic sampling and detection of offshore gas release (CO2 and CH4). This work will deliver basic data and experience, and will assess knowledge and technical gaps in order to facilitate further developments of continuous geochemical monitoring devices as applied to open sea environments and lakes. First operational testing of basic gas monitoring installations will be conducted in the Gulf of Trieste and will be coupled to ecological investigations. Analysis of water chemistry will be accompanied by a preliminary assessment of CO2 seabed behaviour, and exposure tests on mussels and other organisms exposed to likely CO2 concentrations. It is the aim of the collaboration to establish the basic infrastructure within the team for coming gas and water monitoring coupled to ecological impact investigation at a demonstrated CO2 site. For this feasibility study, the Gulf of Trieste is chosen as an appropriate marine test site due to the available infrastructure.This report is the second deliverable of JRAP8 (Monitoring of submarine CO2 fluxes and ecological impact studies on natural analogues for CO2 leakage). The first report was focussed on the technical prerequisites of offshore automatic detection of gases, data storage and data transfer. Topics of this report are (a) the testing of an automatically operating offshore monitoring buoy (quantitative detection of offshore gas both gaseous and dissolved with a focus on CO2), analysis of water chemistry and (b) biological assessments of CO2 tolerance.