Rigs: Drilling the Deep

Rigs: Drilling the Deep. . , Skyscrapers of the Sea , The land beneath the Santa Barbara Channel is rich with petroleum deposits. In the 1880s the first wells were drilled in shallow waters near shore. Within a few years, the beach was crowded with wooden piers and derricks stretching out beyond the surf. Offshoreoil drilling started in the United States at Summerland in 1896. Exploration farther out in the Channel commenced after World War II, and the first deep sea wells were drilled in the 1950s. Availability of federal Icases spurred intensified activity in the massive Dos Cuadras Oil Field, discovered below the Channel in 1968. , , Blow Out! , Huge offshore oil platforms were built to drill through the sea floor. In carly 1969 Platform "A" blew out, rupturing the sen floor and unleashing 80,000 barrels of crude oil into the ocean. Local beaches and marine wildlife were severely impacted. Prominent media coverage of the spill, dead and dying oil-soaked birds and animals, and extensive clean-up Operations caused widespread public outcry. The catastrophic event led directly to modern environmental law in California and the United States, In 2015, a ruptured pipeline spilled over 100,000 gallons of oil onto Refugio Beach. , , Waterproofing , The Chumash used two distinct types of pismu, or raw petroleum: malak - the soft, sea-borne bitumen that washes up on beaches, and wogo , the harder, higher grade asphaltum found only in land deposits. Malak was a valuable resource for the Chumash, who used the pliable material to coat basketry bottles to make them waterproof, and to glue decorative shell beads to bowls and other utensils. Spanish and Mexican builders also used beach tar to waterproof the roofs of adobe dwellings. Hard asphaltum - wogo , was mixed with melted pine pitch to caulk Chumash tomols - ocean-going planked canoes. , , Below the Surface , Rich petroleum deposits under the sea floor have been tapped by increasingly deeper drilling operations moving farther out into the Channel. Summerland's near-shore oil rigs and processing plants no longer exist, but offshore platforms continue to operate in 2015. Asphaltum (solidified tar) was used extensively to pave local streets and the coast highway in the 1910s. Asphaltum from deep shaft mines in Goleta was distributed all around the country. Some of the historic streets of New Orleans were paved with asphaltum from Goleta.