Introduction and overviews: Gas hydrates: the Gent debates • Outlook on research horizons and strategies • A primer on the geological occurrence of gas hydrate • Physical/chemical properties of gas hydrates and application to world margin stability and climatic change • Analysis and modelling of hydrate formation: Gas hydrate accumulation in deep-water marine sediments • Mathematical models of gas hydrate accumulation • Improvements in clathrate modelling II: The H2O-CO2-CH4-N2-C2H6 fluid system • Synthesis of CO2 hydrate in various CH3CO2Na/CH3CO2H pH buffer solutions • Exploration strategy and reservoir evaluation methodology • Major occurrences and reservoir concepts of marine clathrate hydrates: implications of field evidence • Detection of gas hydrates using downhole logs • Tomographic seismic studies of the methane hydrate stability zone in the Cascadia Margin • Seismic tomography study of a bottom simulating reflector off the South Shetland Islands (Antarctica) • Worldwide gas hydrate occurrences and regional case studies • Marine gas hydrate inventory: preliminary results of ODP Leg 164 and implications for gas venting and slumping associated with the Blake Ridge gas hydrate field • Geochemistry of gas hydrates and associated fluids in the sediments of a passive continental margin. Preliminary results of the ODP Leg 164 on the Blake Outer Ridge • The occurrence of gas hydrates in Eastern Mediterranean mud dome structures as indicated by pore-water composition • Shallow gas and gas hydrates in the Anaximander Mountains region, eastern Mediterranean Sea • Extensive deep fluid flux through the sea floor on the Crimean continental margin (Black Sea) • Origin of gas hydrate accumulations on the continental slope of the Crimea from geophysical studies • Possible hydrate mounds within large sea-floor craters in the Barents Sea • Detection of gas-charged sediments and gas hydrate horizons along the western continental margin of India • Reflection characteristics, depth and geographical distribution of bottom simulating reflectors within the accretionary wedge of Sulawesi • The geothermal field of the North Sulawesi accretionary wedge and a model on BSR migration in unstable depositional environments • Relevance to margin stability and climatic change • Gas hydrates along the northeastern Atlantic margin: possible hydrate-bound margin instabilities and possible release of methane • Evidence for faulting related to dissociation of gas hydrate and release of methane off the southeastern United States • Natural gas hydrates: searching for the long-term climatic and slope-stability records • What does the ice-core record imply concerning the maximum climatic impact of possible gas hydrate release at Termination 1A? • Ice-core record of atmospheric methane changes: relevance to climatic changes and possible gas hydrate sources • Index