This chapter begins with a review of the pioneering work undertaken on the Scotian Shelf, off eastern Canada, by L. H. King and his colleagues at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. However, having ‘cut our teeth’ in the North Sea, the pockmarks and seeps here have become the standard against which we compare those of other areas. Consequently it is appropriate to review our early studies of North Sea pockmarks. This provides a historical perspective on pockmark research, and indicates how this early work led us to the conclusions that pockmarks and seabed seeps are important geological phenomena and indicators of processes associated with seabed fluid flow. In some cases the sites we visited early on have been the subjects of further work. This is also reviewed here.

By the end of this chapter it becomes clear that seeps and pockmarks, along with the associated carbonates and biological communities, are components of the important hydrocarbon cycle.