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A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the most ambitious oil exploration effort under way in Alaska. Shell this summer planned to explore a vast new frontier for the state’s oil industry: the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off the North Slope coast.

The company has mobilized a 16-vessel fleet to drill wells, shoot sound waves into the seabed to learn the underground geology and bore into the seafloor to test soil conditions.

But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered Shell to stop all activity until a hearing on Aug. 14.

The order came on petitions from the North Slope Borough and Native and environmental groups.

The groups say federal officials should have allowed a more thorough public evaluation of how Shell’s activities could impact the environment and the North Slope’s indigenous people before allowing any drilling.

They contend that Shell’s activities could drive bowhead whales farther from the coastline, interfering with Native subsistence whale hunts. They also question Shell’s ability to clean up an oil spill on sea ice.

“They are jeopardizing our subsistence way of life,” North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta said Friday.

The oil company returned to Alaska in a big way in 2005, when it obtained 84 lease blocks in the Beaufort. The company had a 50-year history in Alaska before it withdrew from the state in 1998.

The court order is disappointing, said Curtis Smith, a Shell spokesman. He said the company still hopes to reach an agreement with the borough and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission.

“Alaska is a long-term investment for Shell,” he said.

Shell has mobilized the Kulluk drilling platform and the Frontier Discoverer drilling vessel for the drilling at the Sivulliq prospect in Camden Bay, near the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In all, Shell plans to use 16 vessels this summer. Besides drilling and the seismic tests, the oil giant plans geotechnical boring to test seafloor soil conditions.

The plan submitted by Shell Offshore Inc. proposed to drill up to 12 exploration wells on 12 tracts over three years, including four exploration wells this summer.

The U.S. Mineral Management Service’s environmental assessment determined the proposed exploration “would not significantly affect the quality of the human environment.”

Itta said the MMS should have prepared a “full-blown” detailed environmental impact statement instead.

Besides the North Slope Borough, the groups appealing include Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands, a network of indigenous organizations; the Center for Biological Diversity; Pacific Environment; and the Alaska Wilderness League.

“As a mother and grandmother, I am concerned that the Arctic Inupiat whaling culture is at risk because the MMS insists on rushing ahead with offshore oil plans,” said Doreen Simmonds, an Inupiat in Barrow and member of the Resisting Environmental Destruction group.

“Considering the movement of the ocean ice, there is too big of a risk that an oil spill will occur, therefore creating a risk of destroying the Inupiat culture.”

The appeals court, in its order Thursday, wrote, “Vessels currently located in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas shall cease all operations performed in furtherance of that program but need not depart the area.”

Shell has no vessels in the area right now, Smith said.

He said the timeline for drilling in the Beaufort this year is getting tighter, and the company hopes to begin exploration this year before the arrival of sea ice makes it impossible. The company hoped to be active off the North Slope between this month and October, he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.