Fig. 1.

Gas Hydrate Destabilization Zone in the Romanian sector of the of the Black Sea margin. The GHDZ, area between the black line and the black dashed line, has been determined in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea where the continental shelf and slope are incised by the Danube canyon and several submarine scarps. The GHSZ is comprised between the modern and the future (5000 yrs) landward termination of the GHSZ that correspond to the 660 and 720 mbsl bathymetric contours respectively. Gas flares (blue points), non-randomly distributed, are located outside the GHSZ and within the GHDZ. They are observed within the shipborne RESON 7150 multibeam swath along the vessel track indicated in the Supplementary Fig. 2. The inset shows the study area with the location of the seismic profiles used in the present study