This report is about oil spills and the effects they have on the enviroment. It tells what the oil does to certain animals and how the spills are cleaned up.
When crude oil is spilled into a marine environment it eventually breaks down into several different components, each of which have their own eventual facts and cause their own problems for the enviroment. In many spills involving tankers of offshore oil wells, some of the oil spilled initially catches fire. When crude oil burns, the combustion results in atmospheric emissions of gasses, which contribute to global warming and acid rain, as well as large quantities of toxic ash. ... The less dense components of the spilled oil are more votatile and eventually evaporate into the atmosphere. The petroleum then reacts with sunlight and oxygen to form greehouse and acid gasses similar to those from the combustion of oil. The negative impact of oil that burns or evaporates is more diffuse than that of oil, which ends up on shore but still cause appreciable damage to the natural enviroment. A few hours after being spilled the heavier portions of crude oil forms a sticky oil and water mixture called mousse and may either wash up on shore or sink to the bottom of the body of water in which it was spilled. This oil mixes with sediments on the ocean floor and turns into a thich tar-like mass that can destroy the habitat of many bottom dwelling organisms. ... If a spill occurs near a coastline, beached oil can leak into fresh groundwater reservoirs that oftend extend under beaches, contaminating local wells.
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