One purpose of this project is to measure the heat capacity and heat of dissociation of samples of in-situ natural gas hydrates. These calorimetric measurements will be made using a Perkin-Elmer model DSC-2 differential scanning calorimeter. A second purpose is to measure and model hydrate dissociation rates. These experimental measurements will be made with a Cahn 2000 recording electrobalance. This month we completed the electrobalance experiments on samples of carbon dioxide. We compared the results of these experiments with those involving samples of ice in order to calculate the radiative flux from the heater. We have determined that this heat flux is 322 Btu/ft/sup 2/-hr. We have also begun preliminary work with actual methane hydrate cylinders. We have experienced some problems with preparing a clean, whole cylinder for each experiment but these problems will soon be overcome. We continue to refine the technique of high-pressure differential scanning calorimetry on methane hydrate samples. We now run the experiments across 10 K temperature intervals at 2.5 K/min rather than 5 K/min. We also determine the water content of each sample exclusively by means of electrobalance weight measurements.