Ocean Sentry
An engineering professor has figured out why oil remains trapped along miles of gravel beaches more than 20 years after the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Prince William Sound.
The gravelly beaches of Prince William Sound are trapping the oil between two layers of rock, with larger rocks on top and finer gravel underneath, according to Michel C. Boufadel, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Temple University.
Boufadel said the study points out the susceptibility of beaches worldwide to long-term oil contamination, especially at higher latitudes where beaches tend to be gravel or a mixture of sand and gravel. “As global warming is melting the ice cover and exposing the Arctic to oil exploitation and shipping through sea routes such as the Northwest Passage, the risk of oil spills on gravel beaches in high-latitude regions will be increased,” the study says…. Read Full Article by Mary Pemberton
