New information from students and faculty in the marine biology department at Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) reveals underwater worlds full of life where you might not expect them; offshore oil rigs. Recent studies have explored the habitats, which are home to very rare and – in some case – endangered species of fish and other life that scientists hope will influence decisions on what to do with the platforms when they are no longer useful.
Several oil platforms off the coast of Long Beach and other nearby cities are nearing the end of their production lives, but the habitats are home to large numbers of fish and allow scientists to learn more about these rare animals.
“Research within the last 10 years has shown that there are species of rockfish around these platforms that aren’t found anywhere else because they’ve basically been fished out elsewhere—fish like cow cod, canary rockfish and bocaccio, which at one point were threatened species in California,” CSULB Professor Christopher Lowe said in a press release. “The only place that you find large numbers of adults is around these platforms.”
Lowe and his colleagues are concerned that destroying the platforms when they are no longer needed would be destructive to the ecosystem.
“The way they do that is to drop charges down the legs and explode it at the base so they can separate it from the seafloor, then they can lift and cut it,” Lowe said. “But the problem is that the explosions kill everything that has a swim bladder that lives within a kilometer of it.”
By Ryan ZumMallen, Managing Editor