Oil Exploration
Impact of Oil Made
Evident by Seismic Lines
Alberta is crisscrossed by hundreds of thousands of kilometres of seismic lines that are cut and cleared of trees and vegetation by energy companies, which probe the earth for oil and gas by creating shock waves that help them map subsurface geological formations.
But until Harrap flew over a swath of boreal forest in a helicopter during one of his summer stints with the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute — and saw strip after strip of denuded land several metres wide, running from horizon to horizon — he didn’t have a sense of their pervasiveness.
“I had lived in the province for most of my life, but I was really shocked to see so much of the landscape sliced and carved up,” recalls Harrap, who grew up hiking, biking, skiing, climbing and backpacking in the Rockies with his father.
“If you look at a map of northern Alberta, you only see a few roads. But that’s a false picture, because seismic lines — as well as pipelines and transmission lines — are everywhere.”
Scientists know that seismic lines impact wildlife such as caribou, which tend to stay at least 500 metres away — a major encroachment on the habitat of this endangered species. The lines also change predator-prey dynamics by introducing grassy vegetation, which draws elk and deer, and by serving as travel corridors for bears and wolves. And because of the short northern growing season, it takes about 70 years for seismic lines to be reclaimed by forest.
Harrap will spend a week conducting interviews and taking photos in northern Alberta in August or September for his project. He plans to talk to environmental researchers, as well as energy industry representatives. Roughly 60 per cent of jobs in northern Alberta are rooted in the oil and gas sector, and the economic and policy angles are an important part of his story.
“I want to talk to all types of people, even trappers who have had their lines disturbed by seismic activity,” he says. “I want many voices from people connected to the practice.”