Monitoring the long-term effects of offshore oil and gas development along the southern California outer continental shelf and slope: Background environmental conditions in the Santa Maria Basin

Abstract

From the Abstract: “Potential environmental impacts of materials discharged from oil and gas development and production platforms off the coast of southern California (Santa Maria Basin) are being monitored during an ongoing, long-term (five - year) field program. The study combines hypothesis testing of platform effects with basic research on the structure and dynamics of the regional ecosystem over a time series encompassing both seasonal and repeated annual scales. Oceanographic features and processes that are being measured focus on the benthos and include biological community indices and species abundances for hard-bottom and soft-bottom (macroinfauna and meiofauna) assemblages," levels and distributions of trace metals and hydrocarbons in bottom sediments, suspended particulates, animal tissues, and pore waters; water currents and other physical-oceanographic features," various sedimentological properties (sediment grain size, total organic carbon, shear strength.”