There is an oil spill every day off the California coast, but the culprits aren't people. Nature pumps 4,200 gallons of petroleum per day into the ocean through "seeps"-cracks in the seafloor where fossil fuels leak from underground reservoirs. To Chris Reddy and Bob Nelson of the WHOI Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, the oil seeping naturally off Santa Barbara looks a lot like processed oil spilled by tankers in New England waters. Working with Dave Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Nelson (background) and WHOI Research Specialist Larry Ball sampled the petroleum to understand how microbes and other processes naturally weather and deplete oil in the marine environment.
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