Given this revelation, I expect someone to argue soon that this climate monitoring station in Tremonton, Utah is in a natural environment. 😉
From the University of California, Santa Barbara
Scientists discover underwater asphalt volcanoes
Impressive landmarks hidden for 40,000 years rise from sea-floor.
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(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– About 10 miles off the Santa Barbara coast, at the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel, a series of impressive landmarks rise from the sea floor. They’ve been there for about 40,000 years, but they’ve remained hidden in the murky depths of the Pacific Ocean –– until now
UC Santa Barbara scientists, working with colleagues from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), UC Davis, University of Sydney, and University of Rhode Island, say that they have identified a series of asphalt volcanoes on the floor of the Santa Barbara Channel. The largest of these undersea Ice Age domes is at a depth of 700 feet (220 meters) –– much too deep for scuba diving –– which explains why the volcanoes have never been spotted by humans.
“It’s larger than a football field long and as tall as a six-story building,” said David Valentine, professor of earth science at UCSB and the lead author of a National Science Foundation-funded study published online this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. “It’s a massive feature, completely made out of asphalt.”
Chris Reddy, director of the Coastal Ocean Institute at WHOI and a co-author of the study, has studied oil spills his whole career. “These volcanoes are an astonishing display of nature,” Reddy said. “And they underscore one little-known fact: Half of the oil that enters the coastal environment is from natural oil seeps like the ones off the coast of California.”
Valentine, Reddy, and their colleagues first viewed the volcanoes during a 2007 dive on the research submarine Alvin, though Valentine credits Ed Keller, professor of earth science at UCSB, with guiding them to the site. “Ed had looked at some bathymetry (sea floor topography) studies conducted in the 1990’s and noted some very unusual features,” Valentine said.
Based on Keller’s research, Valentine and other scientists took Alvin into the area in 2007 and located the mystery features. Using the sub’s robotic arm, the researchers broke off samples and brought them to labs at UCSB and WHOI for testing. In 2009, Valentine and colleagues made two more dives to the area in Alvin and also did a detailed survey of the area using an autonomous underwater vehicle, Sentry, which takes photos as it glides about nine feet above the ocean floor.
“When you fly Sentry over the sea floor, you can see all of the cracking of the asphalt and flow features,” Valentine said. “You can see all of the textures of a flowing liquid that solidified in place. That’s one of the reasons we’re calling them volcanoes, because they have so many features that are indicative of a lava flow.”
But tests showed that these aren’t your typical lava volcanoes found in Hawaii and elsewhere around the Pacific Rim. Using a mass spectrometer, carbon dating, microscopic fossils, and comprehensive, two-dimensional gas chromatography, the scientists determined that these are asphalt and were formed when petroleum was flowing from the floor of the channel about 30,000-40,000 years ago.
The researchers also determined that the volcanoes were at one time a prolific source of methane, a greenhouse gas. The two largest volcanoes are about a kilometer apart and have pits or depressions surrounding them. These pits, according to Valentine, are signs of “methane gas bubbling from the subsurface.” That’s not surprising, Valentine said, considering how much petroleum was flowing. “They were spewing out a lot of petroleum, but also lots of natural gas,” he said, “which you tend to get when you have petroleum seepage in this area.”
The discovery that vast amounts of methane once emanated from the volcanoes caused the scientists to wonder if there might have been an environmental impact on the area during the Ice Age. Valentine found two high-profile studies, one in the journal Science and the other in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which examined events from that time, including a period in which water in the channel became anoxic. “It became a dead zone,” Valentine said. “We’re hypothesizing that these features may have been a major contributor to those events.”
While the volcanoes have been dormant for thousands of years, the 2009 Alvin dive revealed a few spots where gas was still bubbling. “We think it’s residual gas,” said Valentine, who added that the amount of gas is so small that it is harmless because it never reaches the surface.
Other co-authors of this study are Christopher Farwell, Sarah C. Bagby, Brian A. Clark, and Morgan Soloway, all from UCSB; Robert K. Nelson, Dana Yoerger, and Richard Camilli, from WHOI; Tessa M. Hill, UC Davis; Oscar Pizarro, University of Sydney; and Christopher N. Roman, University of Rhode Island.
Credit: Dana Yoerger
[…] Chris Reddy, director of the Coastal Ocean Institute at WHOI and a co-author of the study, has studied oil spills his whole career. “These volcanoes are an astonishing display of nature,” Reddy said. “And they underscore one little-known fact: Half of the oil that enters the coastal environment is from natural oil seeps like the ones off the coast of California.” […]
Half the oil? How do we know that percentage is remotely accurate?
Any time I hear that “it’s a little known fact,” I’m reminded of an old Charlie Brown strip that went roughly like this.
Charlie Brown and Lucy at a drinking fountain:
C.B. “I wonder how they get so much water into those things?”
Lucy: “It’s a little known fact that they use compressed water in them.”
C.B. “Oh.”
Lucy, aside: “They’re so little known ’cause I make them up.”
“”” Steve in SC (17:07:00) :
La Brea Tar Pits Submerged.
Wonder if there are any fossils trapped therein? “””
Steve; I can only conclude that you are largely unaware of what the La Brea Tar pits really are.
For a start; they are just right there in down town LA; there’s probably a Starbucks where you can sit and drink your Pike’s Peak and sniff the asphaltic hydrocarbons.
The tar pits are accompanied by a sizeable museum, that is jam packed witht the recovered skeletons; of Sabre Tooth Tigers, Dire Wolves, Mastodons; and all manner of critters that wandered into that Venus fly trap. Just imagine you are a Sabre tooth tiger, and you see this mastodon sort of stuck in the mud; wow a free meal just for the taking; so you go and join your last meal in the tar pits, and become anew museum exhibit. They actually have some pseudo trapped animal in the bubbling much so you don’t even have to imagine it;
And if you are dumb enough to go in there; you too will end up in that museum.
Yes much of what is known of the animals of ancient America comes from the fossils unearthed; make that untarred at la Brea. Definitely worth a visit for anyone visiting LLA even shortly; aka for a short time.
And for my money; any kind of wolf is rather Drire; so I am not sure what that is all about.
Of course Asphalt is natural. In the Bible its called brimstone. The Dead Sea is full of it. It was used by the Egyptians as part of mummification. Mummy comes from a word for asphalt. The Mediterranean seafarers use asphalt to caulk there ships.
This is a good one: “the amount of gas is so small that it is harmless because it never reaches the surface.” The only harm methane does, apparently, is cause global warming.. Water around a benthic methane source will have a high chemical oxygen demand, and probably be a little anoxic.
The asphalt volcanoes themselves could host an interesting array of bacteria, adjusted to that unique evolutionary niche, with unusual abilities in modifying complex hydrocarbons.
meemoe_uk
Thanks for the information. Sounds like a ” most highly coordinated, heavily financed, attack” to me
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE63P00K20100426
Very interesting find! However, other than the ‘volcano’ shape and apparently large volume, this should not be considered unusual for this area. Here’s a little bit of background and context.
The Santa Barbara Channel is the westward extension of an oil producing district known as the Ventura Basin. Combined with the Los Angeles Basin located to the southeast, this area was the primary petroleum producing district in the world during the 1920’s.
Petroleum products from this area have been used by humans for many centuries. The Chumash indians ‘mined’ tar from surface seeps along the coast at Carpenteria (located about 20 miles to the east of the ‘volcano’) and traded it to other tribes across California.
Twenty or so discrete oil fields are located in the area dating back to the late 19th Century. Several small fields are located along the immediate coast from Point Conception east to Ventura. The Summerland Field is reported to be the location of the first offshore (from a pier) oil drilling in the world. A tank farm at one of these fields, I think the Elwood Field in Goleta (located immediately onshore from the ‘volcano’), holds the distinction of being the only site on the US mainlaind targeted by Japanese guns (a deck gun of a submarine) during WWII. Today, a string of drilling platforms are located along in the channel. A significant nearby oil spill into the channel 1969 is the primary reason why no new offshore drilling has been allowed in California for the last 40 years.
In the nearby mountains, early oil development included simply channelling the discharge from surface seeps into tanks or pipelines and/or digging shallow inclined galleries to improve gravity ‘drainage’ of the petroleum from the adjacent rocks . Today, there are numerous still active seeps (onshore and offshore) along the south coast of Santa Barbara County. Anyone who has walked the beaches of Santa Barbara County is well aware of the sticky globs of oil that are constantly washing ashore and sticking to feet, clothing and dogs! Many true believers incorrectly attribute this tar to ‘anthropogenic’ sources.
At a location near Pt. Conception, petroleum fills fractures in the siltstone exposed in the face of the coastal bluff just above the beach. On warm sunny days the temperature of tar gets high enough for it to flow a little.
Also consider the La Brea Tar Pits in the middle of the City of Los Angeles. These voluminous surface oil seeps are unique in the world for the vast numbers of Pleistocene bird and mammal fossils trapped by the tar. These seeps were active up into the latest Holocene as indicated by some human remains that were found there. I imagine the main difference between La Brea and the ‘volcanos’ is the onshore location where temperatures higher than the chilly waters at the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel allow the petroleum to flow into lagoons rather than just piling up into ‘volcanos’.
Steve in SC (17:07:00) :
> La Brea Tar Pits Submerged.
> Wonder if there are any fossils trapped therein?
While some fish have be found at La Brea, I think the vast majority are critters that walked into the asphalt and got stuck (including predators trying to take advantage of another critter’s misfortune). It’s a process that’s still happening, though not with Sabretooth Cats and Dire Wolves.
On my “pilgrimage” there (I’m a software engineer, see http://my.safaribooksonline.com/0201835959 ) I asked about that and the guide mentioned on one tour a pigeon tried landing on what looked firm, but was floating asphalt. Someone on the tour was quite distressed that the folks there didn’t try to rescue the dumb bird.
Interesting place – I had no idea it was in the middle of LA. Surrounding buildings vent methane from their basements, and seeps start and stop in sub-geologic time. When I was there part of the parking lot was blocked off because of a new seep.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some active asphalt volcanos waiting to be discovered.
Asphalt is a common naturally-occurring metamorphic rock of the Anthropocene Era.
Don Shaw (17:55:05) – Thanks for that info. I read Alexander Mackenzie’s ca. 1792 mention of them but had no idea how extensive that was.
There was a story about increased cancer rates downstream that made international news. But it was proven to be false. No news coverage of that.
Then a few years ago the Syncrude (I think?) system for scaring off ducks from their tailings pond was temporarily down and during some severe weather – which froze all the water – some mallards and coots landed on it… which turned into international news hysteria that went on and on. Hasn’t happened since, but no news about that fact either.
there are about 15 million mallards in North America and more get shot ebvery hour in hunting season than in this kill but…
Interesting you note how many gallons in a barrel of oil. The coverage of that spill in the Gulf of Mexico by the BBC is using 42,000 gallons instead of 1,000 barrels to make it sound worse (but not mentioning that its a BP well, of course). But just in case that doesn’t sound bad enough a Canadian news channel (CTV) I just checked was using liters.
———
Lazarus Long (17:26:23) wrote:
geo (16:47:10) :
“In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers’ purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the ‘Naturist’ reveals his hatred for his own race — i.e., his own self-hatred.”
-Robert A. Heinlein
And beavers cut down trees!!! Even ‘old growth”!!!
George E. Smith (18:01:12) :
“”” Steve in SC (17:07:00) :
La Brea Tar Pits Submerged.
Wonder if there are any fossils trapped therein? “””
Steve; I can only conclude that you are largely unaware of what the La Brea Tar pits really are.
For a start; they are just right there in down town LA; there’s probably a Starbucks where you can sit and drink your Pike’s Peak and sniff the asphaltic hydrocarbons.
George let me be clear, I was thinking of sharks, whales, seals, crabs, fishes of all sorts or skeletal remains of same entrained in the tar. Also I don’t patronize Starbucks as I don’t care for stylized, way overpriced, bad coffee. Then again that may be just me
lots of media advocacy in both pieces, however….
27 April: ABC Australia: Labor shelves emissions scheme
It was once a centrepiece of the Federal Government’s election strategy, but now the emissions trading scheme (ETS) has been relegated to the shelf until at least 2013…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/27/2883282.htm?section=justin
NYT DotEarth Blog: Andrew C. Revkin: Is China Chortling at Senate Climate Stasis?
Senator John Kerry is trying to tamp down the advance obituaries on his effort, with two colleagues, to cobble a passable Senate energy and climate bill. He just listed three reasons for climate optimism on Talking Points Memo. The first was that he and Senators Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham had invested enormous amounts of time and effort; the second, that a very variegated coalition (from oil companies to environmental groups) was behind the effort; and the third, that everyone recognized China would celebrate if the effort failed…
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/is-china-chortling-at-senate-climate-stasis/
“One World, One People, One giant slab of Asphalt”
T-shirt a Highway Engineer Family friend gave me…
Now that explains why when I go through Tremonten Utah, it’s to damn hot in the summer. If they just moved the weather station to a better spot, there’d be cool temps at the bottom of the hill.
As it is now, every time I tow trailer through there in summer, the temp gauge is in the 100’s.
I’m just kidding – not about the temps, but about the station location….
Mike
I remember the beach at Carpenteria, near S Barbara, being littered with tarry globs in 1967. It was easy to blame them on the oil rigs visible in the Channel, but the locals said they were always there.
That has to be the best example of a contaminated temp station. Perhaps a best of the best thread would be fun. My god they put it right in the parking lot, next to a building, with an AC unit nearby.
The thermometer trifecta.
Mare Asphaltum was the Roman name for the Dead Sea.
Asphalt is very common and been used for 1000’s of years. Just need a quick search of history to find out all the sources and uses.
Wondering why this is such a newsworthy story. What lies behind the motivation? Or am I just being pedantic?
A hilarious blast from the past, a 2005 prediction of a 2012 sunspot high leading to world annihilation as predicted by the Mayans. Hilarious.
oops, the link!
http://lawnorder.blogspot.com/2005/04/daily-kos-coming-weather-crisis-in.html
The last sentence is a bit puzzling to me, and may be worth a look. “We think it’s residual gas,” said Valentine, who added that the amount of gas is so small it’s harmless, and never reaches the surface. “…….hmm, gas in water that doesn’t surface?
The tar pits in downtown LA are but one example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Brea_Tar_Pits
http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/peril_oil_pollution.html
gives an interesting view of what’s going into/onto the sea. The sewers are winning by a mile.
JF
There are many natural oil seeps, including a big one in the Gulf of Mexico.
There are also natural gas seeps, with some near Indonesia causing ships to sink when the bubbles rise up and the ship loses buoyancy. A natural gas seep offshore Santa Barbara was so prolific that it reportedly caught fire and burned for some time. An oil company (Chevron, I believe) obtained permission to place a bell over the seep, capture the gas and pipe it to shore for processing and sale.
The ocean is quite capable of absorbing and disposing of oil, all on its own without any help from man.
Many, many oil tankers were torpedoed during World War II, and many more cargo ships were sunk. Each contributed substantial amounts of petroleum into the ocean – yet somehow the entire world survived.
Imagine that.
source: The Prize by Daniel Yergin, pp. 355-358.
Steve in SC (18:56:34) :
re La Brea Tar Pits Submerged.
Wonder if there are any fossils trapped therein? “””
“I was thinking of sharks, whales, seals, crabs, fishes of all sorts or skeletal remains of same entrained in the tar.”
They have found all sorts of Pleistocene megafauna in those pits – sabre-toothed tigers, short-faced bears – all terrestrial. I’m sure if you googled it you would find some extensive list of fossils from there.
fhsiv (18:37:10) :
Thanks for the fascinating information. I was not aware of California’s oily past or of the Japanese attacks. I had believed that only British Columbia had experienced a ship-to-shore attack in WWII, when on June 20, 1942, a Japanese submarine fired 25-30 rounds of 5 1/2 inch shells at the Estevan Point lighthouse on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. The shells missed, no causalties were reported, but the authorities decided to turn off the lighthouse lights along the coast, which was disastrous for shipping.
DesertYote (18:07:46)
Also fascinating to learn about the ancient uses of bitumen, about which I had been previously oblivious. I checked out your claim that Mediterranean boats were caulked with bitumen, as I had thought that pine pitch was used. What I have learned so far is that the use of bitumen as boat caulking was centred on Mesopotamia and the Arabian peninsula, and not so much the Western or Northern parts of the Mediterranean, where pine pitch would have been used. Appropriate that the multifarious uses of natural asphalt would have originated around one of the great centres of oil wealth. Bitumen was also used by the Babylonians for road surfacing, mortar, to water-proof water tanks and bathrooms, and to water-proof wood for construction, and as an adhesive for flint weapons in Neolithic times. Wow! One learns something new every day!
See J. Connan. 1999. Use and Trade of Bitumen in Antiquity and Prehistory: Molecular Archaeology Reveals Secrets of Past Civilizations [and Discussion], Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Vol. 354 No. 1379, pp. 33-50. Fortunately, the entire first page which includes the most interesting information is freely available at http://www.jstor.org/pss/56705