Ningaloo's world famous whale sharks would be the creatures most at risk should a crude oil spill occur at Royal Dutch Shell's proposed well next to the marine park.

Shell, one of the world's biggest resources companies, announced plans to develop the Prelude liquefied natural gas venture and explore for oil and gas in the Exmouth basin off the WA north-west coast on Monday.

Although the company has played down fears over any oil spill or gas leak coming from an exploration well being located less than 50 kilometres from the marine park, it suggested that whale sharks would suffer the greatest exposure since they undertake long migrations to feed in the waters off Ningaloo.

An eastern states palaeontologist says Australia cannot afford to sacrifice a series of rare dinosaur footprints at the site of the proposed Kimberley gas hub, north of Broome in north-west Western Australia.

Dr Steven Salisbury, from the University of Queensland, has spent the past week touring the Kimberley coast studying fossilised footprints.

He says his research suggests a group of prints at James Price Point could be more significant than first thought.

"I don't want to give anything away right now but I can say that yes there are dinosaur footprints and quite important ones and I hope to go away now and quickly process the information we've been gathering and get that out there for people to see," he said.

Dr Salisbury says the loss of several prints around James Price Point would devastate the science world.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/07/12/3267613.htm?section=justin

Let's be honest here, I've know about these dinosaur tracks since 1980... knowledge revisited in 1986 followed by an in-depth study through various means in 1996. These dinosaur tracks are very valuable to science. Such dinosaur tracks are quite rare around the world (there are several example in Australia). To loose them or even try to move them (cutting them in bits) would be a dark moment in our understanding of the planet.

The dinosaurs that call themselves politicians — just living about 70 years with an active career of 20 years on average — are prepared to destroy 70 million years of history...

Shell has unveiled plans to build the world's first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) platform. The 600,000-tonne behemoth - the world's biggest "ship" - will be sited off the coast of Australia. But how will it work?

Deep beneath the world's oceans are huge reservoirs of natural gas. Some are hundreds or thousands of miles from land, or from the nearest pipeline.

Tapping into these "stranded gas" resources has been impossible - until now.

At Samsung Heavy Industries' shipyard on Geoje Island in South Korea, work is about to start on a "ship" that, when finished and fully loaded, will weigh 600,000 tonnes.

That is six times as much as the biggest US aircraft carrier.

By 2017 the vessel should be anchored off the north coast of Australia, where it will be used to harvest natural gas from Shell's Prelude field.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13709293

A proposal to explore for oil and gas next to the World Heritage protected Ningaloo Reef has been blocked under national environment law.
US company Apache Energy – which was blamed for the 2008 Varanus Island gas explosion – had wanted to carry out a 3D marine seismic survey near the reef to look for potential oil and gas reserves starting in February.
Under the Apache proposal the survey would have covered 227 square kilometres in waters within 30 kilometres of the Ningaloo Marine Park, 1200 kilometres north of Perth.
In its application, the company said it also needed to encroach on about 2 per cent of the adjoining Muiron Islands Marine Management Area, which is part of the Ningaloo World Heritage Area.

But in a rare step Environment Minister Tony Burke on Tuesday deemed the proposal "clearly unacceptable" under national environment law, only the ninth time the decision has been taken since the laws were put in place.
In his decision Mr Burke found the proposed survey would have occurred in loggerhead turtle habitat at a time when females and hatchlings would be present. The resulting noise, he determined, had a high risk of significant harm to the turtles.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/burke-blocks-push-for-ningaloo-oil-exploration-20130116-2ctaj.html#ixzz2IIyCUQFW
See picture and article at top...