Earth Resources: When Is Oil from the Sea too Much?

Per two articles in a recent issue of the journal Science, there comes a time when much is too much, and that time may be now when it comes to harvesting oil from o -shore sea deposits.

A research article by Yanzhu Dong (Nanjing University, China) and colleagues notes that oil slicks polluting our world’s oceans are because of both seepages from natural faults and ssures and human-induced discharges from o shore drilling and shipping lanes.

eir ndings show that human-induced marine oil pollution has been drastically underestimated. Whereas previous estimates were that 54 percent of discharges may have been from human-induced causes, the new estimate shows this is closer to 94 percent.

e study used SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellite images to observe and analyze oil slicks from 2014 through 2019.