BOEM requests comments on Ion survey

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has asked for public comments for an environmental assessment for a seismic survey that Ion Geophysical plans to carry out in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea during the early winter of 2012. Ion has applied for a BOEM geological and geophysical permit for its planned survey: Under the terms of the National Environmental Policy Act BOEM has to conduct an assessment of the potential environmental impacts of the project. Public comments are required by April 30.

Ion has developed a technique for gathering seismic in sea ice, using a geophysical vessel working in tandem with an icebreaker. The geophysical vessel tows a streamer of seismic recorders deeper in the water than usual, allowing the recorders to operate below the ice. By thus operating after the end of the Arctic open water season Ion says that it can avoid conflicts with subsistence whale hunting.

Ion wants to carry out a deep, basin-wide 2-D survey along the entire length of the U.S. Beaufort Sea and into the northeastern Chukchi Sea, connecting surveys that the company has previously conducted in the Canadian Beaufort Sea with a similar survey conducted in 2006 in the Chukchi Sea. The survey would provide insights into large-scale geologic features in the Beaufort Sea continental shelf.

In March Ion told the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Arctic Open Water Meeting that the company anticipates recording 7,177 kilometers of seismic lines in the Beaufort, operating in nine-tenths to ten-tenths cover of ice less than two feet thick.

—Alan Bailey