A Synthesis Review of Emissions and Fates for the Coal Oil Point Marine Hydrocarbon Seep Field and California Marine Seepage

Abstract

Anthropogenic oil in the ocean is of great concern due to its potential immediate and long-term impacts on the ecosystem, economy, and society, leading to intense societal efforts to mitigate and reduce inputs. Sources of oil in the ocean (in the order of importance) are natural marine seepage, run-off from anthropogenic sources, and oil spills, yet uncertainty and variability in these budgets are large, particularly for natural seepage, which exhibits large spatial and temporal heterogeneity on local to regional scales. When source inputs are comparable, discriminating impacts is complicated, because petroleum is both a bioavailable, chemosynthetic energy source to the marine ecosystem and a potential toxic stressor depending on concentration, composition, and period of time. This synthesis review investigates the phenomena underlying this complexity and identifies knowledge gaps. Its focus is on the Coal Oil Point (COP) seep field, arguably the best-studied example, of strong natural marine hydrocarbon seepage, located in the nearshore, shallow waters of the Northern Santa Barbara Channel, Southern California, where coastal processes complicate oceanography and meteorology. Many of our understandings of seep processes globally are based on insights learned from studies of the oil and gas emissions from the COP seep field. As one of the largest seep fields in the world, its impacts spread far as oil drifts on the sea surface and subsurface, yet much remains unknown of its impacts.