Hmmmmm....

SEISMIC SURVEYS FOR OIL

The Obama administration’s 2014 decision to open up offshore oil and natural gas exploration in the Atlantic Ocean creates not only long-term risks from climate change and oil spills, but also more immediate threats to ocean life. The plan allows seismic testing that the federal government admits could kill or injure 138,000 dolphins and whales, including nine endangered North Atlantic right whales, whose calving grounds are on the southern edge of the proposed zone. In total, a Department of the Interior report on the seismic program acknowledges, the plan would cause 13.5 million instances of harm to marine mammals.

Seismic testing involves blasting the seafloor with airguns (a kind of powerful horn) every 10 seconds and measuring the echoes with long tubes to map offshore oil and gas reserves. While a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management factsheet describes the technology as “state-of-the-art computer mapping systems,” seismic testing is actually a blunt-force weapon introduced in the 1920s that was augmented by computer analysis starting in the 1950s.

[link to www.biologicaldiversity.org]