Petroleum hydrocarbons in sediments and invertebrates at the base of marine food webs in Baffin Bay; Climate change, industrial development and source apportionment.

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In Canada’s Arctic, the changes currently underway in sea ice cover, and market pressures for new resources, have resulted in a significant increase in planned or prospective natural resource development. In particular, there has been a resurgence of interest from oil and natural gas companies in exploration and development licensing. Additionally, shipping traffic through the Canadian Arctic is predicted to increase with decreasing ice conditions. The environmental issues surrounding oil spills in ice-covered waters; however, remain a key concern of all stakeholders. The largest prospective under-sea oil reserves in Canada occur beneath Baffin Bay (including the North Water Polynya, Davis Strait, Lancaster Sound, and Jones Sound) which possibly contains as much as 10 billion barrels of oil. Development of this resource carries the risks of spills at all stages of exploration and production. Other possible sources of crude oil contamination in Arctic marine ecosystems include natural oil seeps, and oil spills from ships transporting oil sourced from other regions. Understanding the sources and fate of oil in ice and in the surrounding seawaters and biota are essential for the conduct of environmental risk assessments, the development of oil spill countermeasures, apportioning responsibility, and the monitoring of habitat recovery in the event of a spill. A lack of scientific knowledge for the development of sound policies and regulations could potentially temper the development of Canada’s Arctic oil and gas industry. Conversely, development of a detailed scientific knowledge base about the distribution, behaviour and persistence of hydrocarbons in the Arctic environment will help build confidence among Canadians that increased shipping activities and exploration/exploitation of Arctic offshore oil reserves can safely proceed, i.e., that there is an appropriate degree of science-based preparedness. To address these concerns we propose to; 1) Employ next generation multi-dimenstional gas chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GCxGC-TOFMS) to identify and characterize unique petroleum biomarkers and diagnostic ratios in bottom sediments collected from various regions within Baffin Bay and Lancaster Sound; 2) Employ next generation GCxGC-TOFMS in conjunction with standard GC-MS analysis to analyse zooplankton and benthic invertebrate samples collected from seep areas to test the hypothesis that regionally unique petroleum biomarkers and their diagnostic ratios can be used as a “detector” to ascertain their exposure to local sources of petroleum or, in the case of a spill, new foreign petrogenic sources; and 3) Characterize the microbial communities within the Baffin Bay region and assess their ability to biodegrade hydrocarbon mixtures and thus act as ‘first responders’ in catalyzing natural bioremediation and significant mitigation of certain negative impacts associated with the spilled oil. The ability of microbes to degrade hydrocarbons is well known and is an example of the ‘ecosystem services’ that microbial communities can potentially provide to Canadian society and Canadian industries that produce and transport hydrocarbon resources such as crude oil and bitumen. Many samples required for these studies are already "in-hand" as a result of expeditions conducted off the CCGS Amundsen in 2008, 2009 and 2013. Additional samples will be collected as required in subsequent Amundsen expeditions. This project will also contribute significantly to the training of HQP (1 PDF, 1 Technician, 5 BSc (1 per year of study), 1 MSc and 3 PhD students).