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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Abstract: Results of a 5-Year Study of Naturally Occurring Hydrocarbons in the
Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean
By
The results are discussed of a five-year research
program to study naturally occurring hydrocarbons on the
bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, as well as within and floating on
the surface of the water column. The geographic emphasis
has been in the Gulf, but data on hydrocarbons found floating
at or near the surface have also been collected on a profile
from Dakar to Trinidad. Tar samples have also been collected
seasonally and analyzed chemically from along the entire
Texas coast as well as a portion of the Mexican coast.
Geological, geophysical and oceanographic data were
obtained from large oceanographic research vessels and a
submersible, as well as occasionally from remote-sensing
aircraft. The results corroborate historical evidence of tar on
beaches from naturally occurring seeps. These include its
use in making pottery by the Karankawa Indians in pre-
Columbian times, to Spanish explorers caulking their ships.
More recently, notations appear on charts published by the
United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1902-1909 of
heavy oil slicks off the Louisiana and Texas coasts, and
reports in a United States Geological Survey publication in
1903 of oil ponds off the Sabine River. This research has also
resulted in scores of gas seeps being documented on seismic
sub-bottom profiler records and by visual and photographic
observations from a submersible. End_of_Record - Last_Page 2---------------