Weathering of fuel oil spill on the east Mediterranean coast, Ashdod, Israel

Residual fuel oil spilled into the sea From the Eshkol power station on 8 F ebruary, 1998 contaminated about 9 km of the foreshore north of the Ashdod harbour. A study of the aliphatic, polycyclic alkane and polyaromatic hydro carbon (PAH) composition of the spilled oil shows rapid weathering in the e arly stages followed by gradual slowdown after about three months. Weatheri ng of isoprenoids and PAH compounds and variation in Pr/Ph ratio appear to occur almost contemporaneously with that of n-alkanes, at a relatively mode rate level of degradation, when much of the > C-20 n-alkane envelope is sti ll well preserved. Depletion of various compounds in accordance with molecu lar size rather than molecular structure appears to imply that physical wea thering processes. i.e. evaporation and perhaps Rushing due to wave energy, might have played an important role in the degradation of the spilled resi dual fuel oil in this study case. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.