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Hydrocarbons in the marine environment: relationstiips between natural 

 hydrocarbon seepage and oii production 



Dr. Bruce P. Luyendyk, Director, Institute for Crustal Studies, Dept. of 

 Geological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 

 Iuyendyk@crustal.ucsb.edu 



Dr. J. Scott Homafius, Geologist, Mobil Oil Corp. and visiting Research 

 Scientist, Institute for Crustal Studies, Dept. of Geological Sciences, 

 University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, 

 horaafiu@crustal.ucsb . edu 



Dr. Libe Washburn, Associate Professor, Institute for Computational Earth 

 System Science, Dept. of Geography, University of California, Santa 

 Barbara, CA 93 106, washbum@icess.ucsb.edu 



Dr. Alain F. Trial, Post Graduate Researcher, Institute for Crustal Studies, 

 Dept. of Geological Sciences, Universit>' of California, Santa Barbara, CA 

 93106, trial@magma.geol.ucsb.edu 



Dr. Sanjoy Banerjee, Professor, Dept. of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering, 

 University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93 106, sanjoy@squid.ucsb.edu 



Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. My name is Libe Washburn and I am an 

 associate professor in the Geography Department at UC Santa Barbara. My field of study 

 is physical oceanography with an emphasis on interdisciplinary research issues. Thank you 

 for gixang me the opportunity to discuss some of the oceanographic research that my 

 colleagues and I are conducting at UCSB. For the past year I have been involved in a i 

 multidisciplinary study of natural hydrocarbon seepage in the Santa Barbara Channel that 

 is being conducted by the Institute for Crustal Studies at UCSB. The overall study 

 involves the participation of six faculty members and six graduate and post-graduate 

 researchers at UCSB. Participants in the study come fi-om four university departments 

 and cover the fields of oceanography, geophysics, remote sensing, biology, and chemical 

 engineering. Participants in the study also come fi"om industry. One participant is a 

 geologist fi-om Mobil Oil Corporation who is a visiting research scientist at UCSB. We 

 are also working with private companies that have expertise in specialized techniques for 

 detecting hydrocarbons in seawater and who have important baseline data for detecting 

 changes in the marine environment. 



We think this work is an example of the innovative research that can be pursued 

 by the academic communit>' in cooperation with the private sector. The initial results of 

 our study are unexpected and we think you will find them interesting. However, you 

 should bear in mind that this is on-going research and we are actively involved in field 



