While the focus of concern about the activities of the fossil fuel industry was Shell North of Alaska in 2012, Gazpromneft in the Pechora (SE Barentsz-) Sea, there may raise new worries.
Yesterday an independent Swedish oil exploration company published a fin don a site called ‘Loppa Height’, NNW of Hammerfest, Norway, on the SW periphery of the Barentsz Sea.
I remembered having read about an intriguing undersea feature, not far from that location, the “Haakon Mosby mud volcano”. I muddled around a bit on the search words Loppa-Haakon Mosby. That produced some interesting views on the geomorphology of this region.
I may be an alarmist, not be thorough enough to be taken too seriously. Knowing that, I’m not making a claim that this should be the new hotspot for international protest.
But dig this, that location is geologically much more challenging than the place where the Prirazlomnoye platform has been anchored by Gazpromneft. The Loppa Heights is part of a fractured Rift margin just next to the continental slope into the Norwegian Basin. It’s seabed is crossed by ‘Graben’ (sediment filled stretch canyons) and the deeper crust layers are torn and dislocated by the late Mesozoïc opening of the North Atlantic.
The mud volcano sits on part of this slope, 1250 m below SL. AWI research has shown that there is a ’natural’ seep of methane. This corresponds with a scheme of crust water and hydrocarbons in a very volatile environment. Is this a safe place to start extracting oil?
On the slope, there’s lots of evidence for slide events. There may be deposits of methane clathrates out there too. Drilling won’t trigger a sort of “Storegga-slide”. But it will be a costly operation to do this safe. In my humble opinion too costly.