Dictionary Definition
seep v : pass gradually or leak through or as if
through small openings [syn: ooze]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
- , /siːp/, /si:p/
- Rhymes with: -iːp
Etymology
From Middle English sipen, from Old English sipian, probably cognate with Middle English sippen "to sip"Translations
a place where water seeps out of the ground
- Japanese: にじみ (nijimi)
a seepage
- Japanese: にじみ (nijimi)
Translations to be checked
- ttbc Spanish: filtración
Synonyms
Translations
to ooze through pores
- Japanese: にじみ出る (nijimidedu)
Estonian
Etymology
From German SeifeNoun
seepExtensive Definition
A seep is a wet place where a liquid, usually groundwater, has oozed from
the ground to the surface. Seeps are usually not flowing, with the
liquid sourced only from underground.
The term seep may also refer to the movement of
liquid hydrocarbons
to the surface through fractures and fissures in the rock and
between geological
layers. Oil seeps are quite common: California has thousands of
them. Much of the oil discovered in California
during the 19th century was from observations of seeps.
Seeps may be a significant source of
pollution.
Coal Oil Point Seep Field
One seep, the Coal Oil Point Seep Field offshore
from Santa
Barbara, California has a seep area of about three square
kilometers, and releases about 40 tons per day of methane and about
19 tons of reactive organic gas (ethane, propane, butane and higher hydrocarbons),
which is about the same as that released by all the cars and trucks
in the county. The liquid petroleum produces a slick
that is many kilometers long and when degraded by evaporation and weathering, produces tar
balls which wash up on the beaches for miles around.
This seep also releases on the order of 100 to
150 barrels of liquid petroleum per day. Hornafius et al. The Monterey
formation contains about one billion barrels, so at the current
leaking rate, it would be emptied of liquid petroleum in about
20,000 years if it were not being replenished. The estimated
lifetime of the gas component is even shorter. The field produces
about 9 cubic meters of gas per barrel of oil, and so there is
about 9,000,000 cubic meters of gas in the reservoir. Hornafius et al. The seep would
deplete this amount of gas in about 150 years.
See also
References
- Hornafius, J.S.Quigley, D.C., and Luyendyk, B.P. "The world's most spectacular marine hydrocarbon seeps (Coal Oil Point, Santa Barbara Channel, California): Quantification of Emissions", Journal of Geophysical Research, v.104, n. C9, pp. 20,703-20,711, September 15, 1999. http://seeps.geol.ucsb.edu/
External links
- Natural Oil and Gas Seeps in California
- Hydrocarbon Seeps This UCSB site has a collection of papers describing a major seep just offshore from Santa Barbara, California.