Environmental Base-line Monitoring; An Integrated Approach to Ealuate Environmental Impact of E&P Activities Against Natural Variations in Arctic Ecosystems

Thomas van Hoof

With large projected hydrocarbon reserves, the Arctic is one of the last frontier areas with regards to oil and gas exploration. Being one of the most untouched regions on Earth, it may be one of the most susceptible to disturbance. The effects of the anthropogenic induced climate change of the past ~200 yrs are already visible in the Arctic region. Because of its pristine nature, the influence of oil and gas activity on the Arctic natural environment needs to be kept to a minimum, which normally requires extensive monitoring. The ecosystem sensitivity, extreme conditions, strong gradients and vast area of the Arctic make accurate monitoring of natural dynamics and the direct effects of oil and gas exploration very complicated. To assess the impact of oil and gas exploration and production on Arctic ecosystems, any potential ecosystem responses should be considered against a baseline that represents the continuously changing conditions of the recent geologic past. Via this way, secular ecosystem changes can be separated from responses to industrial activity . Sediment records spanning the recent past are natural archives and are the only means of studying ecosystem variability back in time in the absence of long-term monitoring data. We present case studies using various biological and geochemical proxy records derived from natural archives that can serve as tools for E&P impact assessment in the fragile Arctic ecosystems. The methods provide information on the variability of environmental- and thereby operational conditions such as sea-ice cover, temperature, trophic state and water mass flow. This will contribute to the establishment of a theoretical workflow for application of such tools with the aim of distinguishing natural variability from E&P-related environmental impact in the Arctic.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90177©3P Arctic, Polar Petroleum Potential Conference & Exhibition, Stavanger, Norway, October 15-18, 2013