Deep Sea News

This is a repost of KZ’s winning post for Open Laboratory 2009: The Best Science Writing on the Web. Congrats to KZ!

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This is a tale of cause and effect in the deep sea woven by threads of hypotheses held together by the loom of targeted sampling efforts and multiple lines of evidence. You see, dear readers, once upon a time existed an observation. Hovland (1989) noticed along the Norwegian coastline that carbonate reefs occurred in sediment laden with detectable concentrations of methane and oil. This led him to suggest that

“such reefs form at locations containing high concentrations of bacteria and other microorganisms suspended in the water column as a result of seeping fluids (solutions and gases) that provide some of the energy basis and carbon source for ecosystems independently of photosynthesis.”

Over the course of the last 20 years that hypothesis has been refined by several lines of evidence to suggest that

“the coral reef is located at this exact location due to sub-surface hydrogeologic properties, i.e. that there is an upward seepage of hydrocarbon-charged porewater on which bacteria and other micro-organisms thrive, thus providing suspension-feeders, including the corals, with a substantial and reliable food source.” (Hovland & Thomsen 1997)

This is known as the “hydraulic theory” for reef occurrence. My colleague and former labmate Erin Becker just published a study which sheds more light on the coral-seep relationship. (more…)

Rick notes that…

US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today his intention to shelve plans passed on the final business day of the Bush administration to open much of the U.S. coast to oil drilling, including 130 million acres off California’s coast from Mendocino to San Diego.

To those of you from the oil and gas industry, I pledge that you will have a seat at the table in this Administration. I assure you that you will play an important role in helping us meet our nation’s energy needs. But President Obama and I believe that we need to be honest about our energy future. A “drill only” approach – onshore or offshore – is not enough.
Ken Salazar, Sect. of the Interior

The Obaminstration bringin’ it.

Our expedition to the Twilight Zone is still on hold because of generator problems on the RV Nancy Foster. Now we’ve got Hurricane/Tropical Storm Gustav bearing down on us from the Caribbean. The storm is expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico Sunday morning. So, even if we made it out to the shelf break by Saturday morning, we would only have a day or two of survey. We’ll take it! When do we board?

But honestly, if it wasn’t for this thing with Discovery Channel, I would feel hexed. Gustav is far away in the Caribbean, but already causing heaps of trouble here in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil prices are projected to rise, platforms are being evacuated, and scientific expeditions are battening down the hatches. At least two expeditions in the Gulf of Mexico are expected to follow after ours.

To make things even worse… somehow and sometime recently, gas prices started fluctuating with the weather, so the cost of fuel for an expedition rises everytime a storm comes through, like we’re caught in a hideous feedback loop. Don’t forget the Gulf of Mexico is responsible for 25% of US oil production. We get an “A” for oil. But unfortunately, we get an “F” for fisheries management. There’s alot of work to do in that department.

UPDATE: The BATZ Expedition was canceled today at 11am. NOAA offices in Galveston are in a state of “hurricane preparedness”, bracing for Gustav. Note that NOAA ships were called upon for coastal damage assessment in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, so if the storm(s) proves damaging, more research time could be at jeopardy.

This is one of those WTF videos that came flying across my desktop today. I had never heard of the genus or seen the video ’til this morning, but even if you don’t study squid, there’s no forgetting this one. The video is attributed to Shell, from the Perdido section of Alaminos Canyon at 7800 feet depth in the Gulf of Mexico. MBARI has more footage here.

Unlike people in the glamour states of Florida and California, folks here in Texas don’t mind a little offshore oil development. We view the petroleum industry as two parts necessary evil and one part benevolent overlord. And, we feel this way for free. We don’t get paid off like the lucky folks in Alaska. Our complacency is almost a kind of nostalgia. You might say Big Oil has it pretty easy here in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2001 there were 46 deep water rigs operating in the Gulf and the mood was one of cautious optimism. Now, thanks to escalating oil prices, the mood is more like a rich man’s bliss.

The Baltimore Sun reports on a new ultra-deep oil platform set for installation:

Eight miles north of the maritime border with Mexico, in waters a mile and a half deep, Shell Oil Co. is constructing the most ambitious offshore oil platform ever attempted in the Gulf of Mexico.

As tall as the Eiffel Tower, the floating production facility will be anchored to the ocean floor by moorings spanning an area the size of downtown Houston. Slated to begin operating late next year, this leviathan known as Perdido (or Lost) will cost billions and be capable of pumping 100,000 barrels of crude a day.

Rigzone notes:

The spar will be secured in place by nine chain and polyester rope mooring lines, spanning an area of the seafloor roughly the size of downtown Houston.

I’m a sucker for any story with the word “ultra deep” in it, but the article at the Sun invokes an interesting discussion of a “drinking straw effect” wherein a US rig close to a maritime border might siphon oil from across the boundary in Mexican waters. This is a little backwards, though.

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In 1982, following years of civil unrest and economic crisis in Argentina, the Argentine military government invaded the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic in an effort to reclaim the territory from the British. This is known as the Falklands War. Nearly 900 people died in the conflict, mostly Argentines. At the time, few knew of the Falkland Islands, and fewer knew Argentina was capable of mounting an amphibious attack.

Now, 25 years later, the secret’s out. It was all about oil. Plans are underway to start drilling within the Falklands EEZ. “The area might hold 60 billion barrels of oil – equivalent to the North Sea’s estimated original reserves”, says PriceofOil.org.

The website reports:

“…preparations are under way in the South Atlantic to ensure that the islands can cope with sudden wealth” and “the successful extraction of oil could bring billions of pounds to the 3,000 islanders, in a cash bonanza similar to that enjoyed by Gulf states after the development of oil fields there.”

Just in case you were wondering if first world imperialism was alive and well…you can read this story, too from the Telegraph UK. Apparently from the British perspective, the real problem is how to cope with all this sudden wealth. Argentina continues to maintain their claim over the Falklands, as they have since the 19th century, and this is now embedded in the Argentine constitution since 1994.

Every once in while, I read something on the internet that boils my blood. Last year it was the utter nonsense coming from the beauty industry about the benefits of deep-sea water (Which won me a Fuzzy). Now it is ramblings from Nick Szabo. Who is Szabo?

Nicholas Szabo holds a Juris Doctor degree from The George Washington University and a Bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Washington. He has substantial experience in the areas of Internet security, e-commerce, and software engineering, and is widely read in history, economics, and science.

Apparently, all this education has convinced Nick that peak oil is nonsense and deep-sea deposits will sustain us for years.

Peak oil is based on the Hubbert peak theory. Basically it states that single oil field is finite and thus production from that field will follow a normal curve, with production peaking and eventually dwindling due to resource depletion. Oil companies to predict future yields use this theory routinely.

This theory has been extended to predict a global peak for all oil reserves. Hubbert himself accurately predicted the peak for U.S. oil (late 1970’s) in 1956. He predicted a global peak sometime around now. There are alternative models that largely make the same predictions. Have we already hit peak? Several advocates and members of industry think so. Of course, all this generates controversy and criticism. Most of the criticism centers on pointing to inability of the model to predict a definite year (e.g., we have passed many of the previous prediction dates). Irregardless of whether the peak is 1999, 2003, 2006, 2010, 2021, there seems to be little evidence that there will not be a depletion of oil in our lifetime.

So what does Szabo say?

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