First-order description of the mechanical fracture behavior of fine-grained surficial marine sediments during gas bubble growth

Bubbles in sediments, imaged via Computed Tomography (CT) scanning, and in surrogate transparent material (gelatin), are well-described geometrically as eccentric oblate spheroids. While sediments are undoubtedly visco-elasto-plastic solids, only part of that complex behavior appears to influence significantly the formation and shape of gas bubbles. Specifically, the shape of these bubbles can be explained if the mechanical response of fine-grained sediment is approximated by Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM). To determine the adequacy of the LEFM approximation for gas bubble growth in fine-grained sediments, a number of gas bubbles were injected and grown in natural sediments, while monitoring the size and shape using an industrial CT scanner. A comparison of measured inverse aspect ratios (IARs) of the injected bubbles with calculated IARs from pressure records provides support for the LEFM theory. Deviations from LEFM are observable in the data, but as bubbles grow larger they trend more closely toward the theory. The use of LEFM has been shown to describe gas bubble growth in shallow coastal sediments to first order.