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Oil and Gas Deposits
In the Santa Ynez Mountains, one can see flat oceanbed sandstone that
has been lifted to a vertical position and folded down again directly beside it. The geologic forces that must have been applied to this rock strata, once a flat horizontal surface and now a vertical incline and immediate decline, are quite mind boggling. And it is these such visual records that hint at the underground oil reserves that have been the boon and the bane of the Channel region.
The discovery of large oil reserves beneath the Channel was not the
accomplishment of solely modern geologists. Native Americans for thousands of years have been harvesting the tar that seeps from the ocean floor and floats up onto the surface, then washing ashore with the tides. This tar caulked their boats and cooking baskets, mended their stone bowls, and was the adhesive for decorations on cave paintings, pipes, bowls and stone effigies.
In written history, a sea captain, George Vancouver, wrote in 1793 that
as he passed through out the Channel there was a film of ‘ dissolved tar ‘ as far as the eye could see. And by the late 1800s, entrepreneurs were drawing people to Santa Barbara to partake in the then-touted healing fumes from the gases that seep out from the ocean floor along with the tar.
Oil Seeps
Along the northern margin area of the Channel, geologists have located
an estimated 2,000 oil, gas, and asphalt seeps. Coal Oil Point, ten miles up shore from U C Santa Barbara is thought to be the largest natural underwater oil seep in the world.
The reason for these seeps is that the sea floor in the Channel is
perforated with holes, some over three feet in diameter. Through these escape hatches, oil and gas bubble up in huge volumes, creating what divers have called a ‘sea of champagne’. An average of 50 barrels of oil penetrate the ocean floor each day at Coal Oil Point alone. The little amount of sea bed covering that deposit is weak and crumbling shale, easily pushed aside under the geologic forces that are steadily pushing the oil to the surface.
The California State Lands Division estimates an average of 25 barrels
of tar can be found on Santa Barbara Channel beaches on any given day.
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