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The Gulf War oil spill, or the "Persian Gulf oil spill", was one of the largest oil spills in history, resulting from the Gulf War in 1991. [1] In January 1991, Iraqi forces allegedly began dumping oil into the Persian Gulf to stop a U.S. coalition-led water landing on their shores.
After the Iraq army left Kuwait, they ignited the spilled oil to create the most damage to the country's oil industry. Because of the Gulf War and its aftermath, it was not cleaned up time wise.
Largest oil spills map: This map shows the location of eleven of the world's largest oil spills. The colored squares indicate the source of the spill - war (red), a well on land (green), a well in the ocean (blue) or a ship (black).
This map shows the locations of oil spills and other incidents for which NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) provided scientific support for the response. It also shows the locations of other major spills, but it does not show the location of every significant oil spill.
The majority of crude oil that was spilled in the Gulf traveled south down the coastline. Most of it remained behind Abu Ali Island located north of Jubail, Saudi Arabia. [2] 706 kilometers of coastline in Saudi Arabia were covered in oil; 366 km were categorized as heavy and 220 km as moderate.
The Gulf is a relatively small, shallow, semi-enclosed body of water bordered by the Arabian peninsula and Iran. Its average depth is only 35 metres and the deepest parts located along the Iranian coast are about 100 metres.
At the end of January 1991, reports of a huge oil spill in the Persian Gulf began to surface. Iraqi forces purposefully opened valves at the Sea Island oil terminal and dumped oil from several tankers into the Persian Gulf in a strategic wartime move against U.S. forces.
Map of Gulf showing locations of study sites for sampling of seawater for analysis of hydrocarbons and trace metals. Concentrations of petroleum equivalents in sea surface microlayer at three sites
Early reports from Iraqi forces claimed that the spill had been caused by the United States sinking of two oil tankers. It was later revealed that in a desperate military move, Iraqi forces had opened oil valves of the Sea Island pipeline, releasing oil from numerous tankers.
Within days of the April 20, 2010 explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people, underwater cameras revealed the damaged wellhead pipe was leaking oil and gas on the ocean floor about 42 miles off the coast of Louisiana.