Abstract
One of the tasks being completed while oil pollution monitoring in the Black Sea, was a study of natural seepage. Two known oil seeps are located in the southeastern section, the Georgian sector, from which crude oil enters the marine environment. The archives of European Space Agency and ScanEx Research and Development Center have a considerable quantity of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images acquired in 1993–2011 by the ERS-1/2, Envisat, and Radarsat-1 satellites, on which seep oil slicks are clearly visible in this region. Processing of the collected SAR images with detected slicks in combination with the geoinformation approach has revealed a link of these slicks with the bottom sources on the local sedimentary structure in the Southeast Black Sea; their analysis provides both new insight into this phenomenon and new information to help understand nature of these oil seeps. On the basis of an analysis of collected SAR images and detailed bathymetric data, information on the source positions on the bottom and estimates of oil volumes entering the sea surface are obtained.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bonn Agreement: Aerial Operations Handbook, 2009. http://www.bonnagreement.org/eng/doc/BonnAgreementAerialOperationsHandbook.pdf.
Ivanov, A.Yu., Slicks and film signatures on spaceborne radar images, Issled. Zemli Kosmosa, 2007, no. 3, pp. 73–96.
Ivanov, A.Yu., Golubov, B.N., and Zatyagalova, V.V., On oil-gas-bearing and unloading of underground fluids in the southern part of Caspian Sea using synthetic aperture radar images, Issled. Zemli Kosmosa, 2007, no. 2, pp. 62–81.
Ivanov, A.Yu. and Zatyagalova, V.V., A geoinformation approach to mapping oil spills in the marine environment, Issled. Zemli Kosmosa, 2007, no. 6, pp. 46–63.
Ivanov, A. and Zatyagalova, V., Radar monitoring of installation places and transportation of marine offshore platforms, Oil Gas J. Russia, 2008, no. 3, pp. 61–70.
Ivanov, A.Yu., On extraction of marine environmental parameters from spaceborne SAR data, Issled. Zemli Kosmosa, 2010a, no. 5, pp. 77–92.
Ivanov, A.Yu., Seepage slicks on the surface of Lake Baikal, Issled. Zemli Kosmosa, 2010b, no. 3, pp. 75–87.
Judd, A. and Hovland, M., Seabed Fluid Flow. The Impact on Geology, Biology and the Marine Environment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Klaucke, I., Sahling, H., Weinrebe, R.W., et al., Acoustic investigation of cold seeps offshore Georgia, eastern Black Sea, Mar. Geol., 2006, vol. 231, pp. 51–67.
Kruglyakova, R.P., Byakov, Y.A., Kruglyakova, M.V., et al., Natural oil and gas seeps on the Black Sea floor, Geo-Mar. Lett., 2004, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 150–162.
Kruglyakova, R.P., Kruglyakova, M.V., and Shevtsova, N.T., Geological and geochemical characteristics of natural manifestations of hydrocarbons in the Black Sea, in Geol. Polez. Iskop. Mir. Okeana, 2009, no. 1, pp. 37–51.
Kruglyakova, R.P., Kruglyakov, V.V., and Shevtsova, N.T., Natural oil and gas seeps on at the floor of Turkish continental slope of the Black Sea, Tr. XIX Mezhd. nauch. konf. po morskoi geologii (Proc. of the 19th Sci. Conf. on Marine Geology), Moscow: IO RAN, 2011, pp. 57–60.
Kvenvolden, K.A. and Cooper, C.K., Natural seepage of crude oil into the marine environment, Geo-Mar. Lett., 2003, vol. 23, pp. 140–146.
MacDonald I.R., Guinasso, N.L., Jr., Ackleson, S.G., et al., Natural oil slicks in the Gulf of Mexico visible from space, J. Geophys. Res., 1993, vol. 98, no. C9, pp. 16351–16364.
MacDonald, I.R., Natural oil spills, Sci. Am., 1998, vol. 279, no. 50, pp. 51–66.
de Miranda, F.P., Marmol, A.M.Q., Pedroso, E.C., et al., Analysis of Radarsat-1 data for offshore monitoring activities in the Cantarell Complex, Gulf of Mexico using the unsupervised semivariogram textural classifier (USTC), Can. J. Remote Sens., 2004, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 424–436.
Preliminary Results of the Black Sea SAR Project. USA National Energy Technology Laboratory, 2010. http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil-gas/publications/Hydrates/2010Reports/NT0005638-QPROct-Dec2010.pdf.
Problemy khimicheskogo zagryazneniya vod Mirovogo okeana. T. 8. Metody i sredstva bor’by s neftyanym zagryazneniem vod Mirovogo okeana (Problems of Chemical Pollution of World Ocean Waters. Vol. 8. Methods and Means to Control Oil Pollution of the World Ocean), Leningrad: Gidrometeoizdat, 1989.
Wagner-Friedrichs, M., Bulgay, E., Keil, H., et al., Gas seepage and gas/fluid migration associated with the canyon-ridge system offshore Batumi (Georgia, south-eastern Black Sea) inferred from multichannel seismic data, Int. J. Earth Sci., 2013 (in print).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Original Russian Text © N.V. Evtushenko, A.Yu. Ivanov, 2012, published in Issledovanie Zemli iz Kosmosa, 2012, No. 3, pp. 24–30.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Evtushenko, N.V., Ivanov, A.Y. Oil seeps in the southeastern Black Sea studied using satellite synthetic aperture radar images. Izv. Atmos. Ocean. Phys. 49, 913–918 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0001433813090065
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0001433813090065