"offshore" as preposition?

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My husband (Stewart Kellerman) and I wrote a post about the prepositional use of "offshore" May 9  for our blog, Grammarphobia.com. It notes that according to the OED and M-W Collegiate, the prepositional use is fairly recent, dating from the mid-1960's.
Link: http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/05/offshore-of.html
Pat O'Conner 
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Date:    Sun, 19 May 2013 20:00:51 -0400
From:    Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
Subject: "offshore" as preposition?

>From Wikipedia's page about the novel *Storm* (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_%28novel%29):

A cyclone develops offshore Japan, and becomes a significant storm that
moves into California as a blizzard of significance for the Sierra Nevada
range, with snowfall amounts of 20 feet (6.1 m).

I don't recall ever seeing this usage before, only Adv + "of": "offshore of
PLACE". It could easily be a typing error, but development of a
prepositional use makes sense too. I can't think of a way to search the Web
for it. Any observations, in either sense?

Mark Mandel

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Date:    Sun, 19 May 2013 19:18:55 -0700
From:    Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: "offshore" as preposition?

"Offshore England" gets a lot of hits, some of which are relevant.

Preposition:
=
http://www.sea-technology.com/news/archives/2012/mar_renewables/mar_renewa=
bles_0312.php
Fyns Kran Udstyr A/S (Odense, Denmark) has tested its hydraulic lifting =
yoke in London Array, offshore England=92s east coast.=20

=
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324744104578473273975041426.=
html
Apache drills globally, with operations in Australia, Alaska, Canada, =
Egypt and offshore England.

http://www.onepetro.org/mslib/servlet/onepetropreview?id=3DSPE-106011-MS
Several typical field applications are reviewed, including cases in =
North Sea, offshore England, and offshore Brunei.

Adjective with "onshore" bonus: =
http://jgs.geoscienceworld.org/content/156/4/779.abstract
examples from the Triassic of onshore and offshore England and Northern =
Ireland

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

On May 19, 2013, at 5:00 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> =46rom Wikipedia's page about the novel *Storm* (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_%28novel%29):
>=20
> A cyclone develops offshore Japan, and becomes a significant storm =
that
> moves into California as a blizzard of significance for the Sierra =
Nevada
> range, with snowfall amounts of 20 feet (6.1 m).
>=20
> I don't recall ever seeing this usage before, only Adv + "of": =
"offshore of
> PLACE". It could easily be a typing error, but development of a
> prepositional use makes sense too. I can't think of a way to search =
the Web
> for it. Any observations, in either sense?

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