The occurrence of deep-sea geohazards is accompanied by dynamic changes in the physical properties of seafloor sediments. Therefore, studying the physical properties is helpful for monitoring and early warnings of deep-sea geohazards. Existing physical property inversion methods have problems regarding the poor inversion accuracy and limited application scope. To address these issues, we establish a deep learning model between the resistivity of seafloor sediment and its density, water content, and porosity. Compared with empirical formulas, the deep learning model has the advantages of a more concentrated prediction range and a higher prediction accuracy. This algorithm was applied to invert the spatial distribution characteristics and temporal variation of the seafloor sediment density, water content, and porosity in the South China Sea hydrate test area for 12 days. The study reveals that the dynamic changes in the physical properties of seafloor sediments in the South China Sea hydrate zone exhibit obvious stratification characteristics. The dynamic changes in the physical properties of seafloor sediments are mainly observed at depths of 0–0.9 m below the seafloor, and the sediment properties remain stable at depths of 0.9–1.8 m below the seafloor. This study achieves the monitoring and early warning of dynamic changes in the physical properties of seafloor sediments and provides a guarantee for the safe construction of marine engineering.

The drastic changes in the marine environment can induce the instability of seabed sediments, threatening the safety of marine engineering facilities such as offshore oil platforms, oil pipelines, and submarine optical cables. Due to the lack of long-term in situ observation equipment for the engineering properties of seabed sediments, most existing studies have focused on phenomena such as the erosion suspension of the seabed boundary layer and wave-induced liquefaction, leading to insufficient understanding of the dynamic processes affecting the seabed environment. In this study, a long-term in situ observation system for subsea engineering geological environments was developed and deployed for 36 days of continuous monitoring in the offshore area of Qingdao. It was found that wave action significantly altered sediment mechanical properties, with a 5% sound velocity increase correlating to 39% lower compression, 7% higher cohesion, 11% greater internal friction angle, and 50% reduced excess pore water pressure at 1.0–1.8 m depth. suggesting sustained 2.2 m wave loads of expelled pore water, driving dynamic mechanical property variations in seabed sediments. This long-term in situ observation lays the foundation for the monitoring and early warning of marine engineering geological disasters.

Geophysical methods detecting electromagnetic properties (e.g., conductivity, relative permittivity, and dielectric loss factor) have been developed into an important tool to accurately assess the hydrate-bearing reservoirs. The key to the satisfying inversion of the electromagnetic collected data is the precise understanding of the electromagnetic responses in hydrate-bearing reservoirs. However, the frequency-dependent anisotropic electromagnetic responses in fracture-filling hydrate reservoirs remain poorly understood. To acquire the above understanding, we use a numerical simulation method to investigate the frequency-dependent anisotropic conductivities, relative permittivities, and dielectric loss factors of the constructed fracture-filling hydrate digital cores. The fractures in digital cores are aligned along a certain direction and contain the hydrate with various distributions and saturations. The simulated electromagnetic behaviors are comprehensively analyzed and explained by the effects of the electrical polarization, the aligned fractures, as well as the occurrence of hydrate with various distributions and saturation in fractures. The results show that the conductivities enhance while the relative permittivities reduce with increasing frequency, respectively, and their dispersion amplitudes at the frequency scope roughly between 100 MHz and 3000 MHz are more dramatic than that at other frequency ranges. The obtained dielectric loss factors increase first and then decrease with frequency and display peak value at the frequency of approximately 1000 MHz. The conductivities, relative permittivities, and loss factor peak values vertical to the fractures are lower than that in the other direction under the same conditions, respectively. It is found that these three parameters for all hydrate distributions and frequencies reduce with the enhancement of hydrate saturation, whereas the decreasing trends in conductivities and relative permittivities are distinct among the various hydrate distributions. The research results would be possible to pave a way for better identifying and evaluating hydrate resources of fractured reservoirs using the collected electromagnetic data.