Oil seeps from the Patagonian shelf: Their thermosteric fate

ISLA FEDERICO; CORTIZO, LUIS CAMILO

Marine and Fishery Sciences

INIDEP

Lugar: Mar del PLata; Año: 2023

2683-7951

Radar images are commonly applied to recognise and monitor oil seeps on surface waters over continental shelves. In San Jorge Gulf, Patagonia, between 46 and 48°S, oil slicks have been surveyed performing ellipse patterns in response to the mesotidal dynamics. These effects were assigned to recent episodic increments of the summer bottom temperatures at depths between from 100 to 120 m, which are 2 °C warmer than those recorded during the 20th century. The slicks are assumed to originate from faults already known by the oil industry onshore. The effects here described should be envisaged in a climate-change scenario leading to temperature increases of the oceans’ shallow waters, together with other effects such as the human-induced global sea level rise. Under such warmer conditions seeps from continental shelf floors will become more frequent, and their contribution to the atmospheric C budget should be globally assessed.