Welcome to the UCSB Hydrocarbon Seeps web site
Our study area is located offshore of Coal Oil Point, California (see map). This project
has the primary goal of estimating seep emissions and revealing their effects. In particular,
we seek to understand the following emission types: (1) natural gas to the
atmosphere, (2) oil to the sea surface, (3) dissolved hydrocarbons in seawater.
(see Project Objectives) Methods employed include sonar 3.5 kHz profiling and side scan surveys, gas capture, dissolved gas sampling/analysis, tar sampling/analysis, and geological investigations. This site is maintained by the UCSB Department of Earth Science, and represents research done within the Department and includes contributions from the UCSB Institute for Crustal Studies, the UCSB Institute for Computational Earth Systems Science, and the UCSB Marine Science Institute. A companion site created by Dr. Ira Leifer with expanded content can be accessed here - Bubbleology (see "Marine Seeps"). March 2007 For comments or suggestions on our web page, please contact: (include subject word "seeps") Thor Egland |