Seafloor observatory off Barrow planned; workshop to i.d. industry needs for Beaufort, Chukchi seas

Seafloor observatory off Barrow planned; workshop to i.d. industry needs for Beaufort, Chukchi seas

At a workshop to be held April 12 in Anchorage, Alaska, the oil and gas industry will have an opportunity to prioritize products from a seafloor observatory that is proposed for the Beaufort Sea shelf north of Barrow, as well as from a nearshore ocean monitoring program along the Arctic coast. Connected to the shore by subsea cable, the Barrow observatory will make year-round observations of numerous parameters such as marine mammal populations, plankton content in the sea, water currents and ice thicknesses.

“We recognize that the oil industry has many environmental monitoring needs that could be supported by data acquired from a cabled seafloor observatory,” Bernard Coakley of the University of Fairbanks Geophysical Institute and one of the workshop organizers, told Petroleum News. “This meeting is being held to explore how the oil industry could benefit from a permanent, instrumented presence on the seafloor and how they could contribute to its development.”

Normally sea ice and harsh weather limit the study of the Arctic Ocean. However, state-of-the-art technology operating remotely on the seafloor can now enable continuous subsea observation, regardless of weather and ice conditions at the surface. And, at a location on the boundary between the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, the Barrow observatory will be ideally placed to investigate oceanographic processes in a manner that has not been possible before.

National and international initiatives

The observatory is part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative, with potential future funding from that foundation, but is closely linked to the Alaska Ocean Observing System, a program that is largely funded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Molly McCammon, director of the Alaska Ocean Observing System, explained. The Alaska Ocean Observing System is part of a national effort to enhance and integrate ocean monitoring along the nation’s coast, as part of the U.S. contribution to the Global Earth Observing System. The national effort also includes the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System.

“This workshop provides a unique opportunity for the oil and gas industry to provide input into the future directions of two major national initiatives,” McCammon said. “We are sincerely interested in how our program can meet industry’s needs in this region.”

Workshops in 2005 in Barrow and in Monterey, Calif., identified scientific and community objectives for the Barrow observatory, and developed design concepts involving a suite of oceanographic instrumentation coupled to a fiber optic communications cable. As well as prioritizing products for industry, this next workshop will identify users of the industry products and obtain industry guidance on strategies for the required observations for both the Barrow observatory and the nearshore coastal monitoring system.

The workshop will take place at the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel. For more information, contact Molly McCammon at 907 644-6703 or [email protected].

—Alan Bailey