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Fluorescence-estimated oil concentration (Foil) in the Deepwater Horizon subsea oil plume
Citation:
Conmy, R., A. Hall, D. Sundaravadivelu, B. Schaeffer, AND Andrew Murray. Fluorescence-estimated oil concentration (Foil) in the Deepwater Horizon subsea oil plume. MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 180:113808, (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2022.113808
Impact/Purpose:
Expedient oil spill emergency response efforts require the ability to sufficiently detect, track and map spilled oil in aquatic environments. Majority of spills occur in surface waters, where U.S. SMART (special monitoring of applied response technologies) protocols use real-time fluorescence monitoring in decision-making during oil spill dispersant operations in waters of 0 - 10 m depth. Such monitoring requires rapid, reliable, easy-to-operate in situ fluorometers. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill utilized fluorometers for deep sea oil surveillance. This paper demonstrates that fluorescence can be used to estimate petroleum oil concentrations at to supplement coarsely-gridded discrete chemistry samples. This approach is of use for monitoring plans during future deep sea oil releases.
Description:
Tracking the subsea oil plume during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (DWH) was conducted using in situ fluorescence via vertical profilers (n = 1157) and discrete sample chemical analyses (n = 7665). During monitoring efforts, discrete samples provided a coarse picture of the oil plume footprint, but the majority of the samples were below standard analytical detection limits for petroleum hydrocarbons. In situ fluorescence data improved the spatial and temporal resolution of the subsea oil plume characterization. Here we synthesized millions of continuous fluorescence data points from hundreds of contemporaneously discrete samples collected to demonstrate how fluorescence could serve as a proxy for Benzene-Toluene-Ethylbenzene-Xylene (BTEX) concentration. Data mined from Gulf Science Data repository were well correlated, and geographically and temporally aligned to provide direct comparisons. Described here are the methods used to calibrate the fluorescence data and to spatially approximate the three-dimensional geographic extent of the oil plume.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Fluorescence-estimated oil concentration (Foil) in the Deepwater Horizon subsea oil plume
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