Estimated location of the seafloor sources of marine natural oil seeps from sea surface outbreaks: A new "source path procedure" applied to the northern Gulf of Mexico

Najoui, Zhour; Riazanoff, Serge; Deffontaines, Benoı̂t; Xavier, Jean-Paul

doi:10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2017.12.035

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…repeatability and grouping in space, are their most discriminating characteristics. This is why the oil seep/slicks have distinctive shapes that can help to distinguish natural oil seeps from oil pollution or other similar phenomena (IVANOV, 2011;NAJOUI et al, 2018).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the launch of the other SAR-equipped satellites, many oil slicks associated to cold seeps have been detected on the SAR images of the ERS-1/2, Envisat, Radarsat-1/2 and other satellites (WILLIAMS & LAWRENCE, 2002;DE MIRANDA et al, 2004;ZATYAGALOVA et al, 2007;EVTUSHENKO & IVANOV, 2013;MACDONALD et al, 2015). Until now SAR images are routinely used to detect natural hydrocarbon seepage at the sea surface (EVTUSHENKO & IVANOV, 2013;MACDONALD et al, 2015;JATIAULT et al, 2017;NAJOUI et al, 2018;BAYRAMOV et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Oil seeps detection and mapping by SAR imagery in the Adriatic Sea

Иванов

Morović

2020

Acta Adriat. (Online)

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This study provides a new perspective on the hydrocarbon seeps in the Adriatic Sea, supporting both the environmental issues and eventual oil and gas exploration. Remote sensing techniques, particularly synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images are used to detect oil slicks on the sea surface. In such a way two groups of oil slicks have been detected in the Northern and Central Adriatic Sea on the SAR images acquired by the European Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B satellites in 2017-2018. Analysis of SAR images together with bathymetry, geological and geophysical data in geographic information system (GIS) have shown that these oil slicks, visible on the sea surface have natural origin, i.e. are seepage phenomena, associated to existing marine hydrocarbon systems. These oil slicks were concentrated over the shallow shelf, and repeatedly or episodically occur in the areas of interest, and are related to local oil-and-gas bearing sediments. Findings of the seeps and seep candidates that passed unnoticed from public attention indicate the effectiveness of the approach used. Finally, it is concluded that the frequent SAR imagery is an excellent tool for monitoring of seepage phenomena, and the results indicate that the use of remote sensing methods can be considered as a good approach to support oil and gas exploration in the Adriatic Basin.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oil seeps detection and mapping by SAR imagery in the Adriatic Sea

Иванов

Morović

2020

Acta Adriat. (Online)

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“…The backscatter of the radar signal is also influenced by environmental conditions such as wind speed and sea state (Fingas and Brown, 2017;Zhang et al, 2014). The ideal wind speed for the detection of oil slicks is debated and differs according to the study referenced: −2 to 10 m s −1 (MacDonald et al, 2015), −1.5 to 6.5 m s −1 (Jatiault et al, 2017), or −2.09 to 8.33 m s −1 (Najoui, 2017), Vertical polarization (VV) is the most effective mode for detecting oil spills on the sea surface (Brekke and Solberg, 2008;Jatiault et al, 2017;Najoui et al, 2018b, a).…”

Section: Radar Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Oil slicks in the Gulf of Guinea – 10 years of Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar observations

Najoui¹,

Amoussou

Riazanoff

et al. 2022

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. The Gulf of Guinea is a very active area with respect to maritime traffic as well as oil and gas exploitation. Due to the failure of some actors to comply with environmental standards, this region has been subject to a large number of oil pollution episodes. This anthropogenic oil pollution is in addition to natural oil seepage from the ocean floor. This study aims to detect oil slicks in the Gulf of Guinea and to analyse their spatial distribution using synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) images. Previous works have already locally mapped oil slicks in this area; however, to our knowledge, this study is the first to achieve a global statistical analysis based on 10 years of radar images covering 17 exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the Gulf of Guinea. The present study is based on a database of 3644 SAR images collected between 2002 and 2012 by the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) sensor onboard the European Spatial Agency (ESA) Envisat mission, and these images allowed the identification of 18 063 oil slicks. The spatial distribution of these oil slicks is available from Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6470470 (Najoui, 2022b). The oil slicks detected in this work encompass both oil spills of anthropogenic origin and oil seeps of natural origin (natural oil reservoir leaks). A set of 100 georeferenced oil spills is also available from Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6907743 (Najoui, 2022a).

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“…Overlap of results from multiple OSOs should provide a means of triangulating the source location. Najoui et al, (2018) developed a method for backtracking seep source locations from OSOs based on a simplified physics model for ascent velocity (Goncharov, 2009) that they applied to the Gulf of Mexico. The model backtracks the ascent paths for different droplet sizes for each OSO and identifies source locations by the locations where paths from multiple OSOs cross.…”

Section: Evaluation Of Oso Offset From Seepmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physical Controls on the Creation and Persistence of Natural Marine-Seepage Slicks

Meurer

MacDonald

Asl

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Physical processes involved in the ascent of naturally seeped oil from the seafloor and its persistence as a slick are considered. Simplified, physics-based models are developed, drawing in part from the extensive literature concerned with anthropogenic releases of oil at sea. The first model calculates the ascent of oil droplets or oil-coated gas bubbles as they ascend to the sea surface from the seep source. The second model calculates slick longevity as a function of the effect of wind-driven breaking waves. Both models have simplified inputs and algorithms making them suitable for Monte Carlo-type analysis. Using the oil ascent model, we find that slicks from shallower seeps are offset farther relative to their water depth than those from deeper sources. The slick longevity model reveals four growth modes for seepage slicks: persistent (low wind speeds), ephemeral (high wind speeds), reset (all slicks are cleared from an area by high wind speeds), and aging (slick growth after a reset). A year's worth of modeled winds from the Gulf of Mexico indicate average slick ages of ˜12 hours. Taking account of the expected oil release duration implied by slick recurrences yields average slick longevities for high recurrence seeps of ˜6.5 hours and ˜5 hours for low recurrence seeps. Seep flux estimates that include the length of individual slicks and the constraints of local currents and wind implicitly take into account the impact of wind-speed history. Those that assume a slick age should be re-evaluated in light of the current findings.

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Estimated location of the seafloor sources of marine natural oil seeps from sea surface outbreaks: A new "source path procedure" applied to the northern Gulf of Mexico

Cited by 12 publications

References 38 publications

Oil seeps detection and mapping by SAR imagery in the Adriatic Sea

Oil seeps detection and mapping by SAR imagery in the Adriatic Sea

Oil slicks in the Gulf of Guinea – 10 years of Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar observations

Physical Controls on the Creation and Persistence of Natural Marine-Seepage Slicks

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