Abstract: Results of a 5-Year Study of Naturally Occurring Hydrocarbons in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean

By

Richard A. Geyer

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.

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