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An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution.The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters, but spills may also occur on land.
The oil slick as seen from space by NASA's Terra satellite on 24 May 2010. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been described as the worst environmental disaster in the United States, releasing about 4.9 million barrels (210 million US gal; 780,000 m 3) of crude oil making it the largest marine oil spill in history.
Although that method did not remove the oil completely, chemicals called dispersants were used to hasten the oil's degradation to prevent the oil from doing further damage to the marine habitats below the surface water. For the Deep Horizon oil spill, cleanup workers used 1,400,000 US gal (5,300,000 L; 1,200,000 imp gal) of various chemical ...
The spill appears to have moved quickly after the initial incident. On 24 December, satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify showed oil accumulating on a beach in Anapa - some 40 miles from the strait.
The spill involved heavy M100-grade fuel oil that solidifies at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) and, unlike other oil products, does not float to the surface but sinks ...
The BBC has seen pictures showing oil on the surface 30 miles downstream of the spill. Welsh Water said on Saturday the pollution had come from one of its drains used for surface water during rain ...
Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, ... Oil spills can result from the release of crude oil from tankers, ...
Oil pipeline. Most of the oil infrastructure is old and lacks regular inspection or maintenance. [4] Half of all spills occur due to pipeline and tanker corrosion and accidents (50%), other causes include sabotage (28%) and oil production operations (21%), with 1% of the spills being accounted for by inadequate or non-functional production equipment.