Argo Merchant

Brown et al. [22] have described a rapid field method for detecting down to 2pg of oil in sediments associated with marine oil spills. The method was employed in connection with the Argo Merchant oil spill off Nantuckett in December 1976. 

Interest in the impact of spills has been given additional impetus by the Argo Merchant disaster in December 1976 and by the more recent (March 1977) grounding of the Amoco Cadiz off the coast of France, which resulted in the largest oil spill ever recorded (over 200,000 tons of light crude oil). 

Frame et al. (50) have published an atlas of over 70 dual FID/NPD chromatograms of a wide variety of oils separated on a 15.2-m Dexsil 300 SCOT column. They note that the NPD fingerprints of light oils may be lost after weathering, but that those of spilled heavy crudes and residual oils are very stable. For example, they were able to match the NPD peak pattern of an open ocean oil slick sample to the Argo Merchant cargo after the slick had been on the water for three weeks. 

Figure 3. Glass capillary gas chromatogram (high resolution) of saturated hydrocarbons from Stomach contents of cod near the Argo Merchant oil slick, which is virtually identical to saturated hydrocarbons in Argo Merchant cargo oil. Numerals denote n-alkane chain length (55).

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