Macondo oil in northern Gulf of Mexico waters – Part 1: Assessments and forensic methods for Deepwater Horizon offshore water samples

Payne, James R.; Driskell, William B.

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.02.055

Cited by 22 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…However, micro-droplets experience flow resistance from the water column and become essentially neutrally buoyant. These tiny droplets of liquid oil are advected away from their release point along with dissolved components including the emitted natural gas by deep-water currents (Gros et al, 2017;Payne and Driskell, 2018;French-McCay et al, 2018a, French-McCay et al, 2018bMalone et al, 2018;Pesch et al, 2018;French-McCay et al, 2021). Both dissolved hydrocarbons and liquid oil micro-droplets can interact with marine snow and mineral particles and settle towards the seafloor in association with sinking aggregates (Lombard et al, 2013;Adhikari et al, 2015;Vonk et al, 2015;Adhikari et al, 2016b;Yan et al, 2016;Yan et al, 2016;Wirth et al, 2018;Adhikari et al, 2019).…”

Section: Weathering At Depthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fates of petroleum during the deepwater horizon oil spill: A chemistry perspective

et al. 2022

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We describe the initial bulk and compound specific composition of the liquid oil spilled during the Deepwater Horizon (DwH) disaster. The emphasis is on the target hydrocarbon compounds typically found in highest concentrations and on those of concern from a toxicological perspective (i.e., the target normal alkanes and isoprenoids, and PAHs on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) priority list with their alkyl homolog compounds), and/or those relevant for forensic fingerprinting of spill residues (i.e., sulfur containing PAHs and biomarker compounds). Weathering changed the oil’s composition in various environmental compartments. These compositional changes and potential environmental impacts of the remaining weathered residues are presented in this paper. Biodegradation occurred in both surface and subsurface environments while photooxidation primarily modified and removed hydrocarbons in floating oil slicks. The volatile, soluble and highly labile C1 to C10 hydrocarbons were rapidly degraded in the water column and/or emitted to the atmosphere (evaporation). The semi-volatile hydrocarbons (labile C10 to C25) that remained in the water column and floating oil on the water’s surface were lost from oil residues during weathering. The heavy nonvolatile and insoluble hydrocarbons (recalcitrant C25+) were least affected by initial weathering processes in 2010. The composition of the residual oil fraction in surface floating oil was further altered by the addition of oil soluble oxy hydrocarbons produced from photooxidation. During 2011 and 2012 the resulting highly insoluble recalcitrant C25+ oily residues remained on the shorelines, bottom sediments, or bound to suspended particulates in the water column, with detectable residues mostly returning to near pre-spill levels by 2015 to 2020. Some recalcitrant oil residues can still be found at various locations, including some coastal environments (e.g., marshes), or deep-water sediments, at very low levels, ten years after the spill.

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Section: Weathering At Depthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fates of petroleum during the deepwater horizon oil spill: A chemistry perspective

et al. 2022

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“…Figure 2 replots data from Watson (2014), which compares data for BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes) concentrations, total of the target PAHs, and total of target alkanes. Payne and Driskell (2018) discuss the difficulties in sampling, quality control, and quality assurance, and the challenges of sampling truly dissolved compounds, compounds in oil droplets or associated with particulates for PAHs, or other hydrocarbons.…”

Section: Shorter-term Fate: Water Column Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biogeochemical Processes Affecting the Fate of Discharged Deepwater Horizon Gas and Oil: New Insights and Remaining Gaps in Our Understanding

Farrington¹,

Overton²,

Passow³

2021

Oceanog

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Research funded under the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative provided new insights into the biogeochemical processes influencing the fate of petroleum chemicals entering the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) accident. This overview of that work is based on detailed recent reviews of aspects of the biogeochemistry as well as on activities supported by the US Natural Resource Damage Assessment. The main topics presented here are distribution of hydrocarbons in the water column; the role of photo-oxidation of petroleum compounds at the air-sea interface; the role of particulates in the fate of the DWH hydrocarbons, especially marine oil snow (MOS) and marine oil snow sedimentation and flocculent accumulation (MOSSFA); oil deposition and accumulation in sediments; and fate of oil on beaches and in marshes. A brief discussion of bioaccumulation is also included. Microbial degradation is addressed in a separate paper in this special issue of Oceanography. Important future research recommendations include: conduct a more robust assessment of the mass balance of various chemical groupings and even individual chemicals during specific time intervals; seek a better understanding of the roles of photo-oxidation products, MOS, and MOSSFA and their relationships to microbial degradation; and determine the fates of the insoluble highly degraded and viscous oil residues in the environment.

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“…Despite the advances, traditional oil spill analyses still rely heavily on Gas Chromatography (GC) based mass spectrometry techniques that most commonly inventory the volatile/semi-volatile components of the oil collected from field samples and compare them to the species identified in the suspected parent oil(s). The "book keeping" technique is extremely powerful when a sample of the suspected oil is available, as biomarkers can be used to match the spilled oil to the suspected oil, and the disappearance of species from the parent oil in the saturates, cycloalkanes, and 1-3 ring aromatics can be used to discern weathering patterns (Arey, Nelson, Plata, & Reddy, 2007;Payne & Driskell, 2018;Stout, Payne, Emsbo-Mattingly, & Baker, 2016;Stout, Payne, Ricker, Baker, & Lewis, 2016). However, as world oil consumption shifts to heavier and heavier crude oils, a larger mass fraction of the oil is left unanalyzed by these techniques.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High Resolution Mass Spectrometry Advances in Oil Spill Analysis

Rodgers

Chacón-Patiño

Niles

et al. 2021

International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings

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Oil is a complex mixture of alkanes, cycloalkanes, aromatics, nitrogen/sulfur/oxygen (N/S/O) heterocycles, alcohols, ketones, carboxylic acids, porphyrins, and myriad possible combinations therein. Once introduced into the environment, some weathering processes reduce this complexity through evaporative losses (loss to atmosphere) as well as water washing of low ring number aromatics, N/S/O heterocycles, alcohols, ketones, and carboxylic acids (loss to seawater). However, Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) supported research has revealed that the contributions of these mechanisms to the reduction of molecular complexity are dwarfed by that of oxidative weathering processes (photo- and bio-oxidation) that increase the compositional complexity of the transformed oil. Because these oxidative processes increase the complexity of an already analytically challenging organic mixture and the boiling point of transformed species is higher than that of the precursors, conventional analytical techniques yield little insight into the identification of oil spill transformation products. Despite the challenge, recent advances in analytical science now allow molecular-level insight into these complex systems irrespective of initial (unaltered) or transformed-product boiling point; these advances were largely made possible by GoMRI supported research efforts. They expose a continuum of oxidized transformation products that span oil-soluble, oil-soluble interfacially-active, and water-soluble species. The isolation and characterization of oil-soluble, interfacially-active species confirm a long-standing theory that photo-oxidation generates oil-soluble surfactant-like species, which limit the effectiveness of dispersants. Furthermore, photo-oxidation specific microcosms are shown to generate unique species that are also found in field samples. Bio-oxidation only microcosms were found to generate very different, oil-soluble species; thus, photo-oxidation is implicated in the formation of transformation products in the field. Finally, analyses of photooxidized distillate cuts as well as asphaltene samples confirm prior reports of photo-induced polymerization and photo-cracking of native petroleum molecules. Here, we summarize the advances in the molecular-level understanding of oil over the past 8 years, in the context of oil spill science, by high resolution mass spectrometry, and we highlight potential opportunities for future research, as well as knowledge gaps that must be addressed for future spills.

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Macondo oil in northern Gulf of Mexico waters – Part 1: Assessments and forensic methods for Deepwater Horizon offshore water samples

Cited by 22 publications

References 66 publications

Fates of petroleum during the deepwater horizon oil spill: A chemistry perspective

Fates of petroleum during the deepwater horizon oil spill: A chemistry perspective

Biogeochemical Processes Affecting the Fate of Discharged Deepwater Horizon Gas and Oil: New Insights and Remaining Gaps in Our Understanding

High Resolution Mass Spectrometry Advances in Oil Spill Analysis

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