4.0 Article

Oil spill fingerprinting method for oily matrices used in the Deepwater Horizon NRDA

Journal

ENVIRONMENTAL FORENSICS
Volume 17, Issue 3, Pages 218-243

Publisher

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/15275922.2016.1177759

Keywords

Biomarkers; weathering; reproducibility; diagnostic ratio; Macondo

Funding

  1. NOAA through Industrial Economics, Corp. (Cambridge, MA)

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The circumstances of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the resulting multiyear natural resources damage assessment (NRDA) investigation presented challenges to conventional oil spill fingerprinting protocols that included rapid weathering of the spilled oil, the practical aspects of intra-laboratory reproducibilty in analyses conducted over multiple years, and the fact that spilled Macondo well oil was geochemically similar to other spilled and naturally seeped crude oils from the northern Gulf of Mexico. This article describes a three-tiered oil spill fingerprinting method, based largely upon modification of existing quantitative methodology, that was used to compare nearly 1,600 oily matrix NRDA samples to the spilled Macondo oil. The method was also used to compare fresh Macondo oil to genetically related crude oils from the northern Gulf of Mexico, and in most cases could distinguish Macondo oil from closely related oils from the region.

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