The globs of tar that wash up on the coastline below UC Santa Barbara may be a nuisance to beach walkers, swimmers, and surfers, but to researchers, they’re a reminder of an invaluable natural laboratory—one in which significant quantities of oil and gas bubble up continuously from the seafloor.
“There are marine seeps all over the world,” says Ira Leifer, a researcher with UCSB’s Marine Science Institute and Department of Chemical Engineering, “but these are probably among the largest seeps that are easily accessible to any researchers. For us it’s just a 40-minute boat ride.“
The seeps from the Coal Oil Point Seep Field in the Santa Barbara Channel represent both a natural oil spill that can help scientists understand how oil disperses and how marine life deals with it, and a source of methane—a potent greenhouse gas. By studying these seeps, scientists are learning about their contribution to the global methane budget, and they’re testing ways of detecting methane emissions.
