This article originally appeared in UCSB's ' The Current .'
From oil rigs to tar seeps, it’s hard to miss the presence of petroleum around the Santa Barbara Channel. And the proximity of UC Santa Barbara has enabled scientists to investigate the interplay between the two processes releasing oil from underground: human enterprise and regional geology.
Emeritus Professor James Boles collected and analyzed decades of data on methane seeping from the seafloor southeast of Platform Holly, just offshore from Isla Vista. He and colleagues Grant Garven at Tufts University and Chris Peltonen at Beacon West Energy Group determined that production of oil and natural gas from the platform reduced natural methane seepage into the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel, confirming earlier regional studies. The findings appear in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology .