1 fishes are up on the shelf, I mean, a tremendous amount of biomass on 



2 Georges Bank. If you compared it to the canyons, it might be a lot more 



3 on the shelf than it is on the canyons. 



4 But, if you are talking about benthic organisms-- 



5 DR. HECKER: I am talking about epifaunal benthic stuff now. 



6 That's all I'm talking about. 



7 DR. VALENTINE: We don't want to make some statement that will be 



8 obviously incorrect because it is not qualified. 



9 DR. BUTMAN: The second to the last one is--here we go with 



10 "unique" again. I wonder if there are other characteristics of canyons 



11 that make conclusions from previous studies of CCS effects of drilling 



12 inapplicable or not appropriate and—I'm really getting in trouble with 



13 this one. 



14 The two things-'there may be many things here, but the one thing 



15 which is very different in canyons from the open shelf is this confined 



16 extent. The canyon is only 3 kilometers wide or so. 



17 We have heard a lot about the effects of drilling. At least 



18 identifiable barium is only maybe one or two kilometers from a drilling 



19 rig. In a canyon, if you go 1 or 2 kilometers, if you actually drill in 



20 the axis of the canyon, 1 or 2 kilometers from the drilling rig is the 



21 whole canyon or at least a much larger percentage of that area than it 



22 would be, of that environment, than it is, say, on the open flank. 



23 In addition, the reason why or at least one reason why we only see 



24 barite within a few kilometers of a rig on the shelf is that materials 



25 carried horizontally is accumulating farther away but we just can't see 



26 those concentrations. 



27 In a canyon, it can't get carried that far away because there are 



28 canyon walls and so, I think it is a reasonable hypothesis to say at 



29 least initially--especial ly if you are shunting material from--not 



30 depositing it directly at the surface, that initially all of the 



31 drilling muds and cuttings will be in the canyon axis within that 



32 radius. 



205 



