Zhou Peiyu, Chen Changshu, Ye Jianjun, Shen Wenjie, Xiong Xiaofei, Hu Ping, Fang Hongda, Huang Chuguang, Sun Yongge
South China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, PR China.
School of Earth Science and Geological Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, PR China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources & Geological Processes, Guangzhou 510275, PR China.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2015 Apr 15;93(1-2):121-9. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.02.008. Epub 2015 Mar 9.
Oil fingerprints have been a powerful tool widely used for determining the source of spilled oil. In most cases, this tool works well. However, it is usually difficult to identify the source if the oil spill accident occurs during offshore petroleum exploration due to the highly similar physiochemical characteristics of suspected oils from the same drilling platform. In this report, a case study from the waters of the South China Sea is presented, and multidimensional scaling analysis (MDS) is introduced to demonstrate how oil fingerprints can be combined with mathematical methods to identify the source of spilled oil from highly similar suspected sources. The results suggest that the MDS calculation based on oil fingerprints and subsequently integrated with specific biomarkers in spilled oils is the most effective method with a great potential for determining the source in terms of highly similar suspected oils.
油指纹已成为广泛用于确定溢油源头的有力工具。在大多数情况下，这一工具效果良好。然而，如果溢油事故发生在海上石油勘探期间，由于来自同一钻井平台的疑似油类的理化特性高度相似，通常很难确定源头。在本报告中，介绍了一个来自中国南海海域的案例研究，并引入多维尺度分析（MDS）来展示如何将油指纹与数学方法相结合，以从高度相似的疑似源头中识别溢油的源头。结果表明，基于油指纹并随后与溢油中的特定生物标志物相结合的MDS计算，是在面对高度相似的疑似油类时确定源头的最有效方法，具有很大潜力。
