Oil spills in coastal California are a conservation concern for many seabird species and are among the top threats to wintering populations of Aechmophorus grebes. Western Grebes A. occidentalis and Clark’s Grebes A. clarkii are sister taxa that breed in freshwater lakes throughout western North America and predominantly spend the nonbreeding season in the nearshore marine environment, where th...

A fully automated system for the identification of possible oil spills present on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite images based on artificial intelligence fuzzy logic has been developed. Oil spills are recognized by experts as dark patterns of characteristic shape, in particular context. The system analyzes the satellite images and assigns the probability of a dark image shape to be an ...

Releases of hydrocarbons from oil spills have large environmental impacts in both the ocean and atmosphere. Oil evaporation is not simply a mechanism of mass loss from the ocean, as it also causes production of atmospheric pollutants. Monitoring atmospheric emissions from oil spills must include a broad range of volatile organic compounds (VOC), including intermediate-volatile and semivolatile ...

Parts of oil spills reach Iranian coastline along the Persian Gulf in the form of tar balls and scattered oilpatches. There are many published reports regarding oil spills reaching northern coasts of the Persian Gulf,but none report on the content of heavy metals associated with petroleum in sediments and plants ofcontaminated areas. This research was conducted to determine and map petroleum- r...

Detection and quantification of extremely small amount of oil on site and at low cost has broad applications in environmental monitoring, both in oil spills as well as in routine marine/costal ecosystem monitoring. For example, dispersed oil, generated through the use of chemical dispersants in oil spills to break up oil slick into small droplets so that they can be rapidly diluted in 3D space ...

An Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) aims to use Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) measurements for discriminating between two oil slick types observed on the sea surface: naturally-occurring oil seeps versus human-related oil spills—the use of satellite sensors for this task is poorly documented in scientific literature. A long-term RADARSAT dataset (2008–2012) is exploited to investigate oil slick...

Wood-derived cellulosic fibers prepared in different ways were successfully employed to absorb simulated crude oil, demonstrating their possible use as absorbents in the case of oil spills. When dry fibers were used, the highest sorption capacity (six parts of oil per unit mass of fiber) was shown by bleached softwood kraft fibers, compared to hardwood bleached kraft and softwood chemithermomec...

Remote sensing is useful in several modes of oil spill control, including large area surveillance, site specific monitoring and tactical assistance in emergencies. Remote sensing is able to provide essential information to enhance strategic and tactical decision-making, potentially reducing incidence of spills by providing a deterrent factor, decreasing response costs by facilitating rapid oil ...

Petroleum contamination is a growing environmental concern that harms both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. However, the public and regulatory and scientific communities have given more attention to the contamination of marine habitats. This is because marine oil spills can have a serious economic impact on coastal activities, as well as on those who exploit the resources of the sea. Thus, c...

We report here the 5.58-Mb draft genome of Pseudomonas putida strain KG-4 obtained from the oil fields of the Krishna-Godavari basin, Andhra Pradesh, India. The genome sequence is expected to facilitate identification and understanding of genes associated with hydrocarbon metabolism, which can help in developing strategies for managing oil spills and bioremediation.