Large volumes of methane gas hydrate reside within fine-grained marine sediments on continental slopes within the Arctic region, where hydrate exists as fracture filling veins that may hinder normal consolidation processes during ongoing burial. Hydrate dissociation due to anthropogenic induced climate change, which is magnified in the Artic, may lead to significant weakening of the sediment triggering slope instabilities. However, the potential response of hydrate veins under axial loading is poorly understood. To gain better insights a series of uniaxial compression tests, under different stress and strain conditions, were conducted on cylindrical tetrahydrofuran (THF) hydrate specimens with different slenderness ratios. Results highlight the strain rate dependent behavior of the THF hydrate with compressive strength reducing with reducing strain rate. Specimens with high slenderness ratios under high strain rates failed predominantly from spontaneous brittle buckling of the specimen, while for low slenderness ratio specimens, at low strain rates, hydrate behavior is more ductile resulting in lower peak stresses but higher residual stresses. Hydrate under constant stresses exhibited extensive plastic deformation as axial stresses approached failure conditions, with low slenderness ratios showing extensive cracking and shear dislocations, while those high slenderness ratios experienced large out-of-plane deformations. The stress-strain response of the hydrate suggests that at shallow burial depths such as that on the Arctic continental slope where climate change will have the greatest impact, hydrate veins will inhibit sediment consolidation. However, at greater burial stresses the plastic deformation of the hydrate veins may not provide significant impediment to sediment consolidation. Further research is required to characterize the impact of the sediment matrix on hydrate behavior.

大量甲烷气体水合物存在于北极地区大陆斜坡上的细粒海洋沉积物中，水合物作为裂缝填充静脉存在，可能会阻碍正在进行的埋藏过程中的正常固结过程。由于人为引起的气候变化导致的水合物分解（在北极地区被放大）可能导致沉积物显着减弱，从而引发斜坡不稳定性。然而，人们对轴向载荷下水合物脉的潜在响应知之甚少。为了获得更好的见解，在不同的应力和应变条件下，对具有不同长细比的圆柱形四氢呋喃 (THF) 水合物样品进行了一系列单轴压缩试验。结果突出了 THF 水合物的应变率依赖性行为，其抗压强度随着应变率的降低而降低。在高应变速率下具有高长细比的试样主要由于试样的自发脆性屈曲而失效，而对于低长细比试样，在低应变速率下，水合物行为更具延展性，导致峰值应力较低但残余应力较高。当轴向应力接近破坏条件时，恒定应力下的水合物表现出广泛的塑性变形，低长细比表现出广泛的开裂和剪切位错，而那些高长细比则经历大的平面外变形。水合物的应力-应变响应表明，在气候变化影响最大的北极大陆坡等浅埋深处，水合物脉将抑制沉积物固结。然而，在更大的埋藏应力下，水合物脉的塑性变形可能不会对沉积物固结提供明显的障碍。需要进一步研究来表征沉积物基质对水合物行为的影响。