Abstract:

This dataset represents a spatial analysis of the oil slicks observed over the Mississippi Canyon area. Oil slicks has been extracted from satellite imagery and geo-spatially analyzed to identify areas of producing oil from natural hydrocarbon seeps. Seep zones are identified on a 10km gridded area, and surface oil frequency and coverage is provided on a gridded product. This dataset supports the publication: Garcia-Pineda, O., MacDonald, I., Silva, M., Shedd, W., Asl, S.D., & Schumaker, B. (2016). Transience and persistence of natural hydrocarbon seepage in Mississippi Canyon, Gulf of Mexico. Deep-Sea Research II, 129: 119-129. doi: 10.1016/j.dsr2.2015.05.011

Suggested Citation:

Oscar Garcia-Pineda, Ian MacDonald. 2017. Dataset for: Transience and persistence of natural hydrocarbon seepage in Mississippi Canyon, Gulf of Mexico. Distributed by: GRIIDC, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. doi:10.7266/N7SJ1HK8

Publications:

Garcia-Pineda, O., MacDonald, I., Silva, M., Shedd, W., Daneshgar Asl, S., & Schumaker, B. (2016). Transience and persistence of natural hydrocarbon seepage in Mississippi Canyon, Gulf of Mexico. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 129, 119–129. doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2015.05.011

Purpose:

To identify, map, and characterize natural hydrocarbon seeps in the Macondo prospect region near the wreck site of the drill-rig Deepwater Horizon (DWH).

Data Parameters and Units:

WGS-84 zone 16 (projection in degrees, World Geodetic Survey 1984); OSO_ID (identification number) Seep_zone_and OSO_Table.xlsx: This is a spreadsheet that lists the seep zones identified on the satellite imagery. Each Seep Id includes the maximum/minimum number of individual Oil Slick Origins (OSO) and the Latitude (lat, decimal degrees) and Longitude (lon, decimal degrees) of the seep location. Depth (m) Oil_Slick_origin_point_data (Shapefile): This dataset represents a shapefile (read on GIS software e.g. ArcGis) with the location of all the individual OSO points Seep_zone_point_data (Shapefile): This dataset represents a shapefile (read on GIS software e.g. ArcGis) with the location of all the calculated Seep zone points. Transcience_and_Persistence_Seep_Analysis: This folder contains a gridded representation of the oil intersections from slicks identified as from natural seeps. Within this folder are the following attributes SAR_Proc: Number of SAR images Processed; SAR_Samp: Number of Images Collected; Slick1-210: Area of the slick interesecting a given cell; Total Area: Is the total area that slicks covered a cell; Pcent_Area: Is the oil area represented as a percentage of the area of cell; Hits: Is the number of times an image had oil; Freq: is the frequency of appearance of oil on SAR images (Hits divided by SAR_Proc); Volume Leaseblock: This is a shapefile that represents the estimated volume (in cubic meters) of oil present on a daily basis per lease block. The attribute "volume" is calcualted in cubic meters. Fig3a-Plumes_MC252_Final.xlsx: UTM-X (Universal Transverse Mercator, horizontal axes); UTM-Y (Universal Transverse Mercator, vertical axes); Depth (m) (bathimetry depth in meters); Line (unused field)

Provenance and Historical References:

Neural network analysis determination of oil slick distribution and thickness from satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar, April 24 - August 3, 2010: https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org/data/R1.x132.137:0045 Okeanos Multibeam data presented in figure 3b: https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/library-holdings-for-ex1105-field-trials-of-em302-multibeam-sonar-water-column-backscat-10-2011. The point of contact for the geophysical anomaly dataset presented in figure 4a and the seismic profiles presented in figure 4b is Bill Shed, BOEM.

Individual Files: