Custom Effects of

Offshore Drilling on
Marine Life essay paper
writing service
Buy Effects of Offshore Drilling on
Marine Life essay paper online
Introduction

Offshore drilling refers to drilling for oil in the ocean.

This drilling involves one of the technological
breakthroughs that the world has ever made in
recent years. From offshore drilling, many techniques
have come up that have helped drill oil underneath
water. Since the success of the first offshore drilling,
the world has benefited much because it has drilled
gallons of oil that have helped in industries and other
important sectors.

Thesis

Offshore drilling has had many advantages to the

entire world because the world has drilled a lot of oil.
Until the breakthrough of offshore drilling, people
could not drill oil from the surface of the ocean.
However, offshore drilling affects marine life in a
detrimental way. This paper analyses the effect of
offshore drilling on marine life.

Discussion

Offshore drilling involves construction of processing

facilities, industrial facilities, storage tanks and
pipelines that can destroy wetlands, beaches, the
ocean and coastal habitats. The well waste produced
by the facilities used in offshore drilling facilities
contains toxic metals, such as mercury, lead and
cadmium. The drilling fuels also produce radioactive
waste that affects marine life negatively. The
organisms in the ocean accidentally feed on these
toxic metals and radioactive waste that kills them
once the waste accumulates in their body. These
wastes also affect the reproductive life of marine
organisms.

0
0
DAYS

:
0
0
HOURS

:
 0
0
MINUTES

:
0
0
SECONDS
DISCOUNT CODEoQq42p

This means that the wastes have the capacity to

reduce the number of marine organisms
considerably. Oil wells used in offshore drilling
generate millions of gallons of toxic waste, which
pours into the ocean. These wastes release
carcinogens that cause respiratory problems, for not
only marine organisms but also animals in the land.
This kills organisms in the oceans and other water
bodies where offshore drilling happens. Therefore,
offshore drilling affects marine life negatively
because of the waste that it produces (Earle 16).

Oil companies that engage in offshore oil drilling

often use seismic surveys to map rock formations on
the floor of the sea. The seismic surveys use
powerful air guns or powerful cannons that produce
explosives under water. These tools used in seismic
surveys produce sounds can measure up to
thousands of miles from the origin of the blast. The
sound produced by the air guns and cannons destroy
the sensory organs of the sea and ocean creatures.
Most fishes and other sea creatures use sound
through their sensory organs to enable them
navigate, find food, communicate and avoid
predators.

Therefore, the sound produced by the tools used in

seismic surveys can affect marine creatures in a
detrimental way and even cause death of marine
creatures. The impact from seismic survey blast kills
many marine creatures and destroys their homes.
The guns send strong shock across the seabed that
decreases fish catch and lead to marine mammal
stranding (Cicin-Sain and Knecht 169).

In addition, the infrastructure used to drill oil wells in

the ocean has a devastating effect. It involves
building canals across wetlands to transport oil.
These canals cause erosion in the ocean or other
water bodies. Together with the destruction of the
marshland caused in drilling activities, the canals
remove significant storm buffers. These contribute to
the weakening of the sea and ocean surfaces making
them prone to hurricanes and tsunamis.

The canals cause build up of petrochemical plants

that contribute to the negative effects caused by
offshore drilling. These have a direct impact on
marine life because they distract the normal life of
marine creatures. They push marine creatures away
from the place they live. They force them to look for
new environments separating marine creatures.
Marine creatures can move to new environments not
suitable for them. The new environment can cause
stress for them and lead to their death.

Offshore drilling requires the use of drilling mud.

Offshore drilling uses drilling muds as lubrication and
coolants of the drill pipe and bit. The muds remove
cuttings that come from the bottom of oil wells and
help to prevent blowouts by acting as sealants.
Offshore drilling makes use of different types of
drilling mud. However, all drilling muds produce toxic
chemicals that kill marine creatures.

Offshore drilling produces wastewater. Produced

water is a fluid trapped underground in the drilling
process then brought up with oil and gas later.
Produced water accounts for almost twenty percent
of waste that offshore drilling produces. Produced
water has an oil content of about thirty or forty
portions per million of produced water. For instance,
two billion gallons of produced water that gets in to
the Cook Inlet in Alaska each year has about seventy
thousand gallons of oil. Oil has an effect of blocking
fresh air from getting in the water. Therefore, if
offshore drilling goes on for a long time it will
threaten marine life completely because once fresh
air cannot get into the ocean, and then marine
creatures will die (Earle 79).

Offshore drilling produce oil rigs that attract seabirds

at night because of their lighting and flaring and the
fact that they attract fish around them. The oil rigs
cause physical collisions between the seabirds and
the rigs that cause bird mortality. This causes
incineration from flaring that causes burning off,
fossil fuels that produce black carbon harmful to
marine life.

Black carbon that comes from the burning of fossil

fuels contributes to climatic change because it warms
the atmosphere, snow and ice. Oil rigs also add to
the high mercury levels in fish. Therefore, offshore
drilling has many effects to marine life not only by
killing them but also by destroying their environment.

Offshore drilling causes oil spill in to the marine.

When oil spills in the ocean, it spreads in the water
depending on its composition and density. The oil
slick that forms from the oil spill may remain
cohesive and break up in rough seas. Wind force,
waves and water currents force the oil to drift over
the entire water surface that affects the open sea,
coastal areas, marine and terrestrial habitats that
affect marine life in the long run.

Oil spill that contain volatile organic compounds

evaporates partially. The oil residue can disperse in
the water and form a thick mousse with the water.
Part of the oil spill may sink with particulate matter,
and part of it congeals into sticky tar balls. If the oil
spills reach the shoreline or coast, it interacts with
sediments such as the sand, gravel, vegetation and
terrestrial habitats causing erosion and
contamination. Sand and gravel saturated with oil
may fail to protect and nurture normal vegetation
and population of substrate biomass.

Rocks and boulders coated with sticky residue from

oil spills interfere with recreational advantages of
shoreline and can be toxic to coastal and marine life.
Oil spills contaminates fish and other food species
and cause mass mortality of marine creatures. Oil
poisons that come from oil spills destroy marine and
coastal organic substrate that interrupt food chain
that fish and other marine creatures depend on for
food and reproductive success. Whales and dolphins
suffer from skin lesions, hypothermia damaged
airways, congested lungs, and organ dysfunction. All
this come from oil spill ingestion. All these lead to
death (Juneja 425).

Conclusion

Offshore drilling affects marine life negatively.

Seismic surveys that use powerful tools, oil spills,
produced water and oil rigs associated with offshore
drilling have a devastating effect to sea and oceans
creatures. The toxic elements that come from oil
drilling processes affect the habitats and the normal
functioning of the body organs of marine organisms
that cause their death.