1 In any discussion on hydrocarbons there are several questions that 



2 come up, and I'm going to try to be discussing aspects of all of these. 



3 Nothing will be discussed comprehensively here. 



4 Basically what are the concentrations of different types of 



5 hydrocarbons? What are the compositions? If there are different types 



6 of compositions, different types of hydrocarbon inputs, how are they 



7 distributed in the study area? 



8 Where, perhaps do they come from? Where they go? What is maybe 



9 the ultimate fate of the hydrocarbons? And, what physical and 



10 sedimentological processes drive the distributions that are observed? 



11 So, I will be touching on all of those aspects to some extent. 



12 The state of knowledge of hydrocarbons basically comes from several sets 



13 of studies, the MMS-, formerly BLM, funded studies on Georges Bank and 



14 then the slope/rise studies. 



15 The DOE slope studies--DOE SEEP studies and then publications on 



16 the hydrocarbon geochemistry and different aspects on all of these 



17 studies, and then the Georges Bank Monitoring Program, which actually 



18 focused on the drilling activities and the distributions. 



19 So, basically, that is the known published data. There are other 



20 bits and pieces of information on the chemistry from NOAA studies as 



21 well. 



22 The concentrations of hydrocarbons, nothing very surprising here. 



23 When you look at total hydrocarbons, that is the total mass of biogenic 



24 and anthropogenic material that you can quantify by a number of 



25 analytical methodologies. 



26 Not surprising that on the shelf and the bank itself being coarse- 



27 grained and high energy, there are low total levels of hydrocarbons. 



28 When you get into some of the depositional areas on the bank proper or 



29 on the edges of the shelf, concentrations do rise. 



30 Then the slope and rise is slightly higher, but not by more than a 



31 factor of two, so obviously these distributions are driven by the--and 



32 you'll see later by the silt-clay content. The range of concentrations 



33 are just barely two orders of magnitude. 



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