This paper presents a deterministic mathematical model, which simulates the time-dependent behavior of an oil spill near coastal zones. The model solves the full set of partial-differential equations that govern transient, two-phase, turbulent flow and heat/mass transfer phenomena. It is used for predicting the consequences of hypothetical oil spills that could occur near a coastal area of grea...

A neural network approach for semi-automatic detection of oil spills in European remote sensing satellite-synthetic aperture radar (ERS-SAR) imagery is presented. The network input is a vector containing the values of a set of features characterizing an oil spill candidate. The classification performance of the algorithm has been evaluated on a data set containing verified examples of oil spill...

The devastating environmental impacts of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and its media notoriety made it a frequent comparison to the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the popular press in 2010, even though the nature of the two spills and the environments impacted were vastly different. Fortunately, unlike higher organisms that are adversely impacted by oil spills, microorganisms are able to consum...

After the grounding of the Exxon Valdez and its subsequent oil spill, all parties with interests in Prince William Sound (PWS) were eager to prevent another major pollution event. While they implemented several measures to reduce the risk of an oil spill, the stakeholders disagreed about the effectiveness of these measures and the potential effectiveness of further proposed measures. They forme...

After the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform during the spring of 2010, the northern Gulf of Mexico was threatened by an oil spill from the Macondo well. Emergency responders were concerned about oil transport in the nearshore, where it threatened immediately the fishing waters and coastline from Louisiana to Florida. In this region, oil movement was influenced by a continen...

In this study, we measured via surgical sampling hepatic EROD activity in yellow-legged gulls from oiled and unoiled colonies, 17 months after the Prestige oil spill. We also analyzed stable isotope composition in feathers of the biopsied gulls, in an attempt to monitor oil incorporation into marine food web. We found that yellow-legged gulls in oiled colonies were being exposed to remnant oil ...

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill produced large subsurface plumes of dispersed oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico that stimulated growth of psychrophilic, hydrocarbon degrading bacteria. We tracked succession of plume bacteria before, during and after the 83-day spill to determine the microbial response and biodegradation potential throughout the incident. Dominant bacteria shifted substantially ...

From the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, Pittsburgh (B.D.G.); and the Department of Psychiatry, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (H.J.O.); and the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (M.Y.L.) — both in New Orleans. Address repr...

In this study we tested the use of seabird blood as a bioindicator of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) pollution in the marine environment. Blood cells of breeding yellow-legged gulls (Larus michahellis) were able to track spatial and temporal changes consistent with the massive oil pollution pulse that resulted from the Prestige oil spill. Thus, in 2004, blood samples from yellow-legged g...

The technical aspects of oil spill remote sensing are examined and the practical uses and drawbacks of each technology are given with a focus on unfolding technology. The use of visible techniques is ubiquitous, but limited to certain observational conditions and simple applications. Infrared cameras offer some potential as oil spill sensors but have several limitations. Both techniques, althou...