Natural Oil Seeps
Natural Oil Seeps
As much as one half of the oil that enters the coastal environment comes from natural seeps of oil and natural gas.
Read MoreOcean Robots: Hydrocarbon Seeps
Places where hydrocarbons naturally seep from the seafloor provide a way to study how oil spills in the ocean change…
Read MoreDeep-Sea Images Give New View of Arctic Ocean Methane Seeps
Working with colleagues from the Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate (CAGE) in Norway, Dan Fornari from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s (WHOI) Geology & Geophysics Department collected nearly 30,000 high definition images at known methane release sites in the Arctic Ocean north of Norway. The detailed images will provide new insights into the most remote areas of natural methane releases in the world.
Read MoreOil Gently Seeping from the Seafloor
Santa Barbara Oil Seeps
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Read MoreAsphalt Volcanoes on the Seafloor
By Cherie Winner, Joel Greenberg, Lonny Lippsett, Tim Silva :: Originally published online April 25, 2010
Read MoreAsphalt Volcanoes on the Seafloor
Undersea Asphalt Volcanoes Discovered
The dome-like mounds poking up in sonar maps of the seafloor caught scientists’ eyes. They stood out in stark contrast…
Read MoreWHOI scientists find ancient asphalt domes off California coast
They paved paradise and, it turns out, actually did put up a parking lot. A big one. Some 700 feet deep in the waters off California?s jewel of a coastal resort, Santa Barbara, sits a group of football-field-sized asphalt domes unlike any other underwater features known to exist. About 35,000 years ago, a series of apparent undersea volcanoes deposited massive flows of petroleum 10 miles offshore. The deposits hardened into domes that were discovered recently by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and UC Santa Barbara (UCSB).
While Oil Gently Seeps from the Seafloor
I investigate what happens to oil spilled into the ocean—with an eye toward finding better ways to “engineer” cleanups. But…
Read MoreNatural Petroleum Seeps Release Equivalent of 8-80 Exxon Valdez Oil Spills
A new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is…
Read MoreStudy Reveals Microbes Dine on Thousands of Compounds in Oil
Thousands of feet below the bottom of the sea, off the shores of Santa Barbara, CA, single-celled organisms are busy…
Read MoreNatural Petroleum Seeps Offer Clues to the Past and the Future
Just a half mile off California’s coast near Santa Barbara, and in coastal areas around the world, natural petroleum seeps…
Read MoreMixing Oil and Water
In recent decades scientists have made substantial progress in understanding how oil enters the oceans, what happens to it, and how it affects marine organisms and ecosystems. This knowledge has led to regulations, practices, and decisions that have helped us reduce sources of pollution, prevent and respond to spills, clean up contaminated environments, wisely dredge harbors, and locate new petroleum handling facilities.
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