We studied seafloor characteristics, water column anomalies, and sediment methane geochemistry in the German sector of the central North Sea during a research cruise with the German research vessel Heincke in summer 2019. An extensive hydroacoustic mapping campaign revealed the presence and distribution of flares in the water column, indicative for gas bubble releases as well as for geophysical subsurface indications of elevated gas concentrations. We analyzed the spatial distances of detected flares to subsurface...