Oil is seeping into the North Sea after a platform flow line in the seabed sprung a leak, dumping several hundred barrels of oil into the water, according to the British subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell and a Scottish official.
The spill, announced by the company on Friday, is in the central North Sea area known as the Gannet field, about 112 miles east of Aberdeen, Scotland, and has resulted in a sheen of oil on the water’s surface about 20 miles long and 2.5 miles wide, the company said. As of Friday night “leakage of oil has been considerably reduced,” according to a press release posted on the Shell Web site. There was no indication that the leak had been fully stopped.
The company has been vague about the quantity of oil spilled as well as the cause of the rupture, but Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish regional government, said that around 110 tons of oil, the equivalent of about 750 barrels, had poured into the sea, according to Reuters. Shell did not respond to calls Saturday night.
In comparison, last year’s BP Deepwater Horizon disaster spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
“Our current expectation is it will be naturally dispersed through wave action and will not reach shore,” Shell said in the online statement.
The slick is moving west, though no word has been given about the state of the oil beneath the water’s surface. Shell deployed a remotely operated vehicle to monitor seepage into the seabed, the release said.
Shell announced the spill on Friday, but according to their press release the company had been trying to control the leak since at least Wednesday.
Environmental groups like Greenpeace want the company to disclose more information so that contingency and clean-up plans can be formulated, according to Reuters.
The North Sea was the site of a devastating oil disaster in 1988, when 167 workers on the Piper Alpha, a platform owned by Occidental Petroleum, were killed.
The Gannet field is operated by Shell U.K. Limited. The company also operates it on behalf of two other companies, Esso Exploration, of which Exxon Mobil is the parent company, and Production U.K. Limited, a subsidiary of the Nippon Oil Corporation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/world/europe/14oilleak.html?_r=2
Showing posts with label North Sea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North Sea. Show all posts
Monday, August 15, 2011
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
'Balloon head' dolphin discovered (via Dawn Holloway)
A new type of dolphin with a short, spoon-shaped nose and high, bulbous forehead has been identified from a fossil found in the North Sea.
The Platalearostrum hoekmani was named after Albert Hoekman, the Dutch fisherman who in 2008 trawled up a bone from the creature's skull.
Up to six metres in length, the dolphin lived two to three million years ago.
The so-called rostrum bone and a model of the dolphin are on display at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam.
As museum researchers Klaas Post and Erwin Kompanje write in the museum's journal Deinsea, the North Sea has been a rich source of fossils in recent decades as bottom-trawling has become more prevalent.
The practice has yielded tens of thousands of pieces of the fossil record - many of which defy classification.
What is clear from the singular bone found by Mr Hoekman is that the animal from which it came fits neatly in the family of marine mammals known as Delphinids - the ocean-going dolphins that actually includes both killer and pilot whales.
More specific classification within this family is somewhat speculative.
The bone shows an unusually large tip region containing six teeth known as the premaxilla. This feature suggests the broad, blunt nature of the creature's snout.
Based on analyses of similar fossils and modern relatives within the family, the researchers are convinced they have found a new species whose closest living relative is the pilot whale.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11673924
The Platalearostrum hoekmani was named after Albert Hoekman, the Dutch fisherman who in 2008 trawled up a bone from the creature's skull.
Up to six metres in length, the dolphin lived two to three million years ago.
The so-called rostrum bone and a model of the dolphin are on display at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam.
As museum researchers Klaas Post and Erwin Kompanje write in the museum's journal Deinsea, the North Sea has been a rich source of fossils in recent decades as bottom-trawling has become more prevalent.
The practice has yielded tens of thousands of pieces of the fossil record - many of which defy classification.
What is clear from the singular bone found by Mr Hoekman is that the animal from which it came fits neatly in the family of marine mammals known as Delphinids - the ocean-going dolphins that actually includes both killer and pilot whales.
More specific classification within this family is somewhat speculative.
The bone shows an unusually large tip region containing six teeth known as the premaxilla. This feature suggests the broad, blunt nature of the creature's snout.
Based on analyses of similar fossils and modern relatives within the family, the researchers are convinced they have found a new species whose closest living relative is the pilot whale.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11673924
'Balloon head' dolphin discovered (via Dawn Holloway)
A new type of dolphin with a short, spoon-shaped nose and high, bulbous forehead has been identified from a fossil found in the North Sea.
The Platalearostrum hoekmani was named after Albert Hoekman, the Dutch fisherman who in 2008 trawled up a bone from the creature's skull.
Up to six metres in length, the dolphin lived two to three million years ago.
The so-called rostrum bone and a model of the dolphin are on display at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam.
As museum researchers Klaas Post and Erwin Kompanje write in the museum's journal Deinsea, the North Sea has been a rich source of fossils in recent decades as bottom-trawling has become more prevalent.
The practice has yielded tens of thousands of pieces of the fossil record - many of which defy classification.
What is clear from the singular bone found by Mr Hoekman is that the animal from which it came fits neatly in the family of marine mammals known as Delphinids - the ocean-going dolphins that actually includes both killer and pilot whales.
More specific classification within this family is somewhat speculative.
The bone shows an unusually large tip region containing six teeth known as the premaxilla. This feature suggests the broad, blunt nature of the creature's snout.
Based on analyses of similar fossils and modern relatives within the family, the researchers are convinced they have found a new species whose closest living relative is the pilot whale.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11673924
The Platalearostrum hoekmani was named after Albert Hoekman, the Dutch fisherman who in 2008 trawled up a bone from the creature's skull.
Up to six metres in length, the dolphin lived two to three million years ago.
The so-called rostrum bone and a model of the dolphin are on display at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam.
As museum researchers Klaas Post and Erwin Kompanje write in the museum's journal Deinsea, the North Sea has been a rich source of fossils in recent decades as bottom-trawling has become more prevalent.
The practice has yielded tens of thousands of pieces of the fossil record - many of which defy classification.
What is clear from the singular bone found by Mr Hoekman is that the animal from which it came fits neatly in the family of marine mammals known as Delphinids - the ocean-going dolphins that actually includes both killer and pilot whales.
More specific classification within this family is somewhat speculative.
The bone shows an unusually large tip region containing six teeth known as the premaxilla. This feature suggests the broad, blunt nature of the creature's snout.
Based on analyses of similar fossils and modern relatives within the family, the researchers are convinced they have found a new species whose closest living relative is the pilot whale.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11673924
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Dolphin 'super pod' seen in firth
Some of the short-beaked common dolphins which were seen in the Moray Firth Hundreds of dolphins more commonly found in warmer seas have been seen in the Moray Firth while making a "massive migration" into the North Sea.
The environmental charity Earthwatch Institute said more than 400 short-beaked common dolphins were sighted off the north east coast.
It said the "super pod" was a sign of how climate change was pushing some wildlife further north.
It said the "super pod" was a sign of how climate change was pushing some wildlife further north.
The firth is famous for its bottlenose dolphins.
An Earthwatch team headed by Dr Kevin Robinson, director and co-founder of the Cetacean Research and Rescue Unit (CRRU), saw the pod 10 miles off land.
He said the dolphins' appearance in the firth was hugely significant.
Dr Robinson said: "Firstly, the sheer number of dolphins was astounding - there were common dolphin everywhere around us over a two-mile radius.
"Furthermore, this was only the second sighting in the past few years of such a 'super-pod' of this species in these waters. The first sighting in 10 years was recorded here in July 2007 when we were joined by more than 300 animals in the outer Moray Firth.
"Since then we have not seen them, although smaller groups have been identified by co-workers from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society on opportunistic boat surveys."
He said "super pods" were known to exist in other parts of the UK. There have been sightings in the Western Isles, but few in the firth.
The scientist added: "This is further scientific evidence that populations of dolphins are moving further north because of climate change."
'Wall-to-wall'
Christina Gore, a 61-year-old Earthwatch volunteer who was also on the boat trip, said the water was "boiling with animals".
She said: "It was incredibly exciting. They were swimming under the boat and leaping alongside us. There were older animals doing back-flips, and there were even newborn calves swimming along with the group."
Charlie Phillips, of the WDCS, said common dolphins could be seen in the Inner Moray Firth where the stretch of water narrows in the summer.
He said the numbers in the group seen by Dr Robinson off Fraserburgh were amazing.
Mr Phillips said: "To see wall-to-wall dolphins is something to behold."
Large sand eel and mackerel shoals off the Caithness coast may see the "super pod" move into the Pentland Firth, he added.
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