OFFSHORE 

 PRODUCTION 

 / 1.3% 



3.3% 



Figure 1-1. Contributions to marine pollution by oil, 



effects were observed in the biota of the Santa Barbara Channel area after 

 the 1969 blowout. Winter rains were abnormally severe during the Santa 

 Barbara Channel accident, causing huge quantities of clay mineral particles 

 from the Ventura and Santa Clara Rivers to flow into the Channel, sinking the 

 oil slick on contact. The sunken oil was reworked by bottom currents the 

 next year, until most of it resided in the nearly anaerobic Santa Barbara 

 Basin. The sheer volume of sediment input to Jthe Channel that winter covered 

 the oil deposits to a depth of several centimeters within a few months, 

 making the oil inaccessible to all but burrowing benthic organisms. In 

 addition, oil beached along the Santa Barbara Channel coast-line arrived 

 after the beaches had been cut back severly by the longshore currents preva- 

 lent in that area in the winter, so that these oil deposits were buried by 

 several centimeters of sand when the beaches were rebuilt later that year. 

 Continued tidal action dispersed the beached oil vertically within the sand, 

 thus returning the beach to near-normal conditions within a year or two. 

 Sunken oil is not really gone, just out of sight, and oil on the sea bottom 

 could adversely affect local fishing interests for some time after an acci- 

 dent. Shrimp fishermen in the San Francisco area picked up oil in their nets 

 for several weeks following the collision of the Arizona Sixzndard and the 

 Oregon Standard under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1971. This oil was a heavy 

 residual fuel oil spilled in a highly turbulent environment. As it lost 



