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Oil Spill

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Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences

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Definition

An oil spill is the accidental release of liquid hydrocarbons to the environment as crude oil or a petroleum product.

Introduction

Experts in coastal geosciences play a key role in understanding the processes affecting a spill, measures appropriate to remove spilled oil, and, importantly, when to end cleanup activities and let nature continue the cleansing process. The major processes affecting oil on sedimentary shorelines are illustrated in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Processes and conditions affecting spilled oil on sedimentary shorelines (Modified from Page et al. (2013))

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. E-Tech International Inc., P.O. Box 4321, 80306, Boulder, CO, USA

    Erich Gundlach

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  1. Erich Gundlach
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Correspondence to Erich Gundlach .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland

    Jan Harff

  2. Institute of Geography and Geology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

    Martin Meschede

  3. Leibiniz Institute of Marine Sciences, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Sven Petersen

  4. Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and Lit c/o Helmholtz-Center for Ocean Research, Kiel, Germany

    Jörn Thiede

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Gundlach, E. (2015). Oil Spill. In: Harff, J., Meschede, M., Petersen, S., Thiede, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_194-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_194-7

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Oil Spill
    Published:
    25 March 2015

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_194-7

  2. Original

    Oil Spill
    Published:
    16 February 2015

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_194-6

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