Eighteen artificial (man-made) islands have been constructed in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea to support oil exploration and production. The first islands, constructed in the late 1970s, were in shallow nearshore waters where wave and ice conditions are relatively benign. By the early 1980s, island construction had ventured to more exposed sites with water depths approaching 15 m. Innovative slope protection systems and construction methods were developed to address the remote Arctic locations, short construction seasons, scarce local resources, and the challenging, yet poorly defined, offshore wave and ice climate. This paper provides an overview of the history of island development in the Alaskan Arctic and discusses design evolution, construction, and performance.
The U.S. Department of Interior, Minerals Management Service (MMS), Alaska OCS Region commissioned a study to map the extent of peak river overflooding onto the fast ice in the nearshore region of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea. River overflood constitutes a potential hazard to offshore oil and gas development, as it relates to facilities access, oil spill spreading, and the associated phenomenon of strudel drainage and potential seabed scouring. A primary goal of the study was to improve the knowledge of the spatial and temporal variability of overflooding and related hazards by mapping overflood boundaries for a 13-year period from 1995 to 2007, using a combination of helicopter surveys and satellite imagery.
This paper characterizes the spatial and temporal variability of river overflooding on the sea ice and related pipeline and facility siting concerns for the nearshore region of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea. This phenomenon occurs each spring during a brief period when river discharge precedes the break-up of the landfast sea ice. The river water flows on top of the grounded and floating sea ice, and can spread several kilometers offshore and encompass vast areas. The overflood waters drain through holes and discontinuities in the ice, and can create large scour depressions on the sea floor when the drainage rate is high. These so called "strudel scours" can constitute a significant design consideration for subsea pipelines.
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