|
Deepwater Horizon: Learn More
Here you can get some quick information about oil spills and oil well blowouts, spill response, and the effects of oil on wildlife. You can also view some photos of major oil spills.
Background
The incident involves a deepwater drilling platform approximately 50 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana. An explosion and subsequent fire damaged the rig, which capsized and sank on April 22, after burning for hours. It is unclear how much of the estimated 700,000 gallons (approximately 16,700 barrels) of #2 fuel onboard burned before it sank. The rig is owned by Transocean and under contract to BP.
Photo Galleries • top
|
- Major Oil Spills A gallery featuring photos of some of the world's largest oil spills, along with a little information about each of those spills. (10 images)
|
Basic Information about Oil Spills • top
|
|
|
- Oil Types We think of oil as being a single substance, but there actually are many different kinds of oil.
|
- How Toxic Is Oil? Assessing the toxicity of oil can be tricky, mainly because oil is typically a mixture of many different chemicals.
|
|
|
- Oil Spills: A Guided Tour Join a scientific support team from OR&R; as they help Coast Guard officers and others battling major oil spills. The tour includes an animation showing how one of OR&R;'s computer models predicted how the oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez would travel across Prince William Sound during the first week after the spill.
|
- 10 Famous Spills Information about ten of the world's largest oil spills. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
|
|
- Diving Deeper: Oil Spill Response Learn more about oil spills and how NOAA responds to these events in this interview with Amy Merten from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
- NOS: An Oil Spill Primer for Students The United States uses about 700 million gallons of oil every day. The world uses nearly 3 billion gallons each day. That this much oil must be transported every day is truly hard to imagine. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
Information about Spill Response • top
|
- Dispersants: A Guided Tour People responding to an oil spill may use several kinds of "countermeasures" intended to reduce the harm caused by the spill. Dispersants are one kind of countermeasure. This tour gives a basic explanation of what they are and how they work.
|
- In Situ Burning In situ burning involves the controlled burning of oil that has spilled from a vessel or a facility, at the location of the spill. When conducted properly, in situ burning significantly reduces the amount of oil on the water and minimizes the adverse effect of the oil on the environment.
|
- SMART SMART is a cooperatively designed monitoring program for in situ burning and dispersant application.
|
|
|
Other Oil Well Incidents • top
|
- IncidentNews: Marathon Oil Company A December 1987 natural gas blowout on Marathon Oil Company's Steelhead platform in the McArthur River oil and gas field in Upper Cook Inlet, Alaska. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
|
|
- IncidentNews: YUM II/Zapoteca In October 1987, approximately 20 miles northwest of Ciudad del Carmen in the Bay of Campeche, the Mexican exploratory oil well YUM II (located under the Zapoteca rig) experienced a blowout and fire. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
- IncidentNews: IXTOC I In June 1979, the 2-mile deep exploratory well, IXTOC I, blew out in the Bahia de Campeche, 600 miles south of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
- IncidentNews: Globtik Sun In August, 1975, the M/V Globtik Sun struck an unmanned Chevron Oil Company oil production platform approximately 100 miles from Galveston while en route from Aruba to Baytown, Texas. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
- World's Largest Oil Rig Sinks Five days after powerful blasts ripped through the platform in March 2001, killing 10 people, the world's largest offshore oil rig sank and began spewing oil off the coast of Brazil. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
- Oil Rig Disasters A list of major offshore oil and gas drilling related accidents, with details and photographs of the drilling rigs involved. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
Effects on Wildlife • top
|
- Biological Resources Some animal and plant species are especially vulnerable to oil spills. The Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) method classifies these species into categories and displays their locations on ESI maps and provides detailed information about their seasonality, concentrations, and breeding activities.
|
- Effects of Oil Oil, through simple physical contact, inhalation, ingestion, and absorption, has demonstrated harmful effects on wildlife. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
- Effects of Oil on Wildlife Even short term exposure to lighter, more volatile petroleum products (such as kerosene and jet fuel) can have dramatic impacts. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
- Effects of Oil Spills on Wildlife and Habitat Oil spills affect wildlife and their habitats in many ways. The severity of the injury depends on the type and quantity of oil spilled, the season and weather, the type of shoreline, and the type of waves and tidal energy in the area of the spill. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
Oil Spills and Coral Reefs • top
|
|
|
|
|
- NOS Education Discovery Kit: Corals A tutorial on the biology of and threats to corals, a roadmap to related Web resources, and a series of coral-related lesson plans developed for students at the high school level. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
- NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Program supports effective management and sound science to preserve, sustain and restore valuable coral reef ecosystems. [leaves OR&R; site]
|
|
|
|
