Environmental Effects of Offshore Oil Production: The Buccaneer Gas and Oil Field Study (Marine Science, 14)

The Buccaneer Gas and Oil Field Study has been the most comprehensive research project to date concerned with assessing the ecological effects of offshore production activities. It took nearly five years to complete and involved almost 30 individual research groups. All of the raw data have been archived with NOAA's Environmental Data and Information Services, and detailed technical reports have been deposited with the National Technical Information Service so the interested investigator should be able to gain access to them. However, we felt that it would be desirable to present a distillation of our more significant findings in a form that was more readily available to the scientific and lay community. Thus, we conducted a symposium. on the study during EXPOCHEM '80 at the Astrohall, Houston, Texas during October, 1980. This volume comprises the proceedings of that symposium. All but two of the papers presented are included in this book. Manuscripts were not received from Dr. D. A. Wiesenburg (Texas A&M University: Volatile Hydrocarbons) or Dr. J. Tillery (Southwest Research Institute: Trace Metals), but these topics are adequately covered by other authors. An introductory chapter was added to place the study in its proper perspective and to provide some background material on the Buccaneer Field, a brief chapter on biocides was inserted since this topic generated much dis­ cussion at the symposium, and a bibliography is provided to direct the interested reader to sources of additional published infor­ mation on the Study. The Buccaneer Gas and Oil Field Study has been the most comprehensive research project to date concerned with assessing the ecological effects of offshore production activities. It took nearly five years to complete and involved almost 30 individual research groups. All of the raw data have been archived with NOAA's Environmental Data and Information Services, and detailed technical reports have been deposited with the National Technical Information Service so the interested investigator should be able to gain access to them. However, we felt that it would be desirable to present a distillation of our more significant findings in a form that was more readily available to the scientific and lay community. Thus, we conducted a symposium. on the study during EXPOCHEM '80 at the Astrohall, Houston, Texas during October, 1980. This volume comprises the proceedings of that symposium. All but two of the papers presented are included in this book. Manuscripts were not received from Dr. D.A. Wiesenburg (Texas A & M University: Volatile Hydrocarbons) or Dr. J. Tillery (Southwest Research Institute: Trace Metals), but these topics are adequately covered by other authors. An introductory chapter was added to place the study in its proper perspective and to provide some background material on the Buccaneer Field, a brief chapter on biocides was inserted since this topic generated much discussion at the symposium, and a bibliography is provided to direct the interested reader to sources of additional published information on the Study Front Matter....Pages i-xvii Prologue....Pages 1-14 Hydrocarbons and Sulfur....Pages 15-54 Biocides....Pages 55-57 Sedimentology and Geochemistry of Recent Sediments....Pages 59-67 Surficial Sediments and Suspended Particulate Matter....Pages 69-115 Total Organic Carbon and Carbon Isotopes of Sediments....Pages 117-131 Distribution and Abundance of Macrobenthic and Meiobenthic Organisms....Pages 133-177 Observations on the Effects of Oil Field Structures on Their Biotic Environment: Platform Fouling Community....Pages 179-208 The Effect of Structures on Migratory and Local Marine Birds....Pages 209-221 Bacterial Community Composition and Activity....Pages 223-235 Effects on Artificial Reef and Demersal Fish and Macrocrustacean Communities....Pages 237-299 Acute Toxicity and Aquatic Hazard Associated with Discharged Formation Water....Pages 301-327 Environmental Synthesis Using an Ecosystems Model....Pages 329-353 Currents and Hydrography of the Buccaneer Field and Adjacent Waters....Pages 355-385 Hydrodynamic Modeling of Discharges....Pages 387-402 Transport and Dispersion of Potential Contaminants....Pages 403-420 Epilogue....Pages 421-432 Back Matter....Pages 433-446