“…Hence it is very important to understand the relationship between the weathering processes and the composition changes. In recent years, numerous studies concerned with the origin, type, fate and behavior of spilled oils in aquatic environments have been reported (Hostettler et al, 1992;Bence et al, 1996;Boehm et al, 1997;Barakat et al, 2001;Prince et al, 2002;Wang and Fingas, 2003;Wang et al, 2004;Malmquist et al, 2007). However, less is known about the long-term fate of oil spilled in the terrestrial environments (for example, in contaminated soil of this study), which may not only contribute to tracking spilled oils, but also offer some guidance for oil spill bioremediation in terrestrial environment.…”