They didn't know if there would be any oileating bacteria available, although these microorganisms are common in most marine environments. Scientists worried that even if Alaska had oileating bacteria, it might take a long time for sufficient populations to become North Slope crude eaters. Many sorts of bacteria have the ability to become oil eaters, but making the shift from eating other complex organic molecules to eating hydrocarbons can take considerable time. But Alaska, as it turned out, had a treasure chest of hydrocarbon munchers. Scientists Don Button of the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Ron Atlas of the University of Louisville, in Kentucky, said the most probable reason is a regular diet of naturally occurring hydrocarbons, most notably terpenes.
Terpenes are the chemicals removed from evergreen trees to make turpentine.
Conifers regularly release them into the air. Terpene emissions are what cause the haze over some mountain forests in warm weather, Button said. The chemical is among the kinds of volatile, organic hydrocarbons Georgia Tech scientists have implicated in air pollution problems in Atlanta. Computer models and other research there have concluded the city's trees emit more hydrocarbons than automobiles, factories and other manmade sources, according to Dr. William L. Chameides, a Tech geophysicist. No one knows the volume of hydrocarbons emitted from the forests of southeast Alaska, but Button said the evergreens there obviously pump a vast supply of terpenes into the environment.