Sentences with phrase «tar balls»
"Tar balls" refers to clumps or blobs of thick, sticky tar that are often found on beaches or in the ocean. They are formed when oil from sources like oil spills or natural seeps combines with sand or sediment in the water. Full definition
But the microbes will eventually devour all of BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill — no matter where it ends up — except the heaviest, nastiest stuff: asphaltenes and other big - chain hydrocarbons that go on to form the millions of tar balls dotting the world's oceans.
scientificamerican.com
Substituting the pipeline for more deep water platforms would lower the risk of more tar balls on Southern beaches.
[2] The liquid petroleum produces a slick that is many kilometres long and when degraded by evaporation and weathering, produces tar balls which wash up on the beaches for miles around.
The oil hit Dauphin's beach in the form of small tar balls — similar to those I found washing up on the
Frantic to save her brother, Scotch dodges a toothed tar ball as she races around the city, assisted by Baba Yaga.
Alex's top winds of 160 kilometers per hour and the storm's path hundreds of kilometers south of the slick were enough to push tar balls to Galveston, Texas, and even into Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana.
The oil also emulsifies, forming mousse — a frothy mix of hydrocarbons and water — or clumps into so - called tar balls.
A cleanup crew combs the sand for tar balls on Grand Isle, La..
St Joe's is also (apparently) NOAA based but does not seem to project anything, only what has happened, though WaterColor's own web site lists tar balls.
Sportsball from TOO DX: Up to four players take the reins of exotic birds that flap, tackle and dunk balls into the net for points and glory, leaving their opponents as feathery tarred balls of shame.
''... is either on or just below the surface as light sheen and weathered tar balls, has washed ashore or been collected from the shore, or is buried in sand and sediments.»
Tar balls from wood combustion were also observed, especially (~ 5 %) during the LRT pollution episode.
In order to protect the coastline at Dauphin Island — a site where tar balls have made landfall and hundreds of fish are washing up dead on the beach — the US Army has launched a highly experimental plan to prevent any oil
«If there is an impact, it will be very degraded tar balls,» says Julieta Tucker, a media relations officer for the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command Florida post.
Even tar balls are toxic to wildlife, Hyde says, and would deter vacationers.
The possible bad news is that any oil or tar balls which ends up under rocks and logs or which is incorporated into marsh soils will be resuspended and sent all over the place if there is a hurricane.
We have learned that the blob is transiting the Florida Straits between Florida and Cuba, propelled by the Gulf's Loop Current, and that parts of it that is encountering warmer waters are breaking off into smaller tar balls that are now washing ashore in the environmentally - sensitive Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas.
As each generation of Florida's loggerheads swims out into the Atlantic, the young turtles encounter «fronts» made up almost entirely of tar balls, says Blair Witherington, a biologist at the Florida Marine Research Institute.
Archaeological finds suggest that California's prehistoric locals, the Chumash people, eagerly collected the tar balls.
To find out whether California's tar balls had the potential to damage the Chumash's health, Sebastian Wärmländer of Stockholm University in Sweden and colleagues analysed samples taken from Californian beaches and from the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles.
Could these tar balls — collected by humans for thousands of years — provide evidence that our long - standing relationship with hydrocarbons was toxic from the outset?
Wärmländer's team then turned to the Chumash's bones to see whether the tar balls had had an effect on their health.
But «it would be very hard to attribute the tar balls arriving only to the presence of Alex.» And if oil continues to need to be pumped from the ocean floor, operations will have to be shut down some 120 hours before a storm, according to Coast Guard Rear Admiral Thad Allen, who is directing the government's efforts to contain and clean up the oil spills.
«There is a good chance that the large circulation of Hurricane Alex contributed to westward advection of some of the tar balls related to the oil spill toward Louisiana and Texas,» Marks says.
Jonathan Henderson of the Gulf Restoration Network holds a jar of tar balls.
I can just see the tar balls leaving a ring around the Washington Monument... So, if this continues, and rising temperatures slowly re-enter the public consciousness, what do you think will be the most likely outcome politically and economically?
We found the oil both seeping into the marshland (which is a vibrant habitat and feeding ground to birds) and caking the sand in a form closer to «tar balls.»