An Environmental Disaster Unfolds
A collection of photographs, from the explosion on April 20 through the weeks of efforts to plug the leak.
September 19, 2010
Tracking the Oil Spill in the Gulf
Source of leaking oil
New
Orleans
St. Petersburg
Tampa
Naples
Miami
Key West
Pensacola
Panama City
Louisiana
Miss.
Ala.
Florida
Mississippi
Delta
Gulf of Mexico
150 miles
View 100-day
composite
Estimate of oil spilled into the Gulf through
Aug. 2
In millions of
barrels of oil.
Gov’t
est.
4.1
Exxon Valdez
0.3
Ixtoc I
3.3
Map Key
Estimated extent of oil on surface
Surveyed extent
Fishing ban
Loop current
Marshes
Urban areas
Reports from locations where oil has made landfall
For updates, follow us on Twitter @nytoilspillmap.
About the Oil Slick and Landfall Locations
The “estimated extent” of the oil slick is an estimate by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of where oil is mostly likely to go based on wind and ocean current forecasts, as well as analysis of aerial photography and satellite imagery.
The “surveyed extent” shows areas where oil was visible on the water surface during aerial and satellite surveys of the Gulf. The surveyed extents are not available every day and may be incomplete on occasion because poor weather conditions prevented observation in some areas.
The extents may vary widely from day to day because of changes in wind patterns and ocean currents. The loop currents are from NOAA and from Roffer’s Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service.
The locations where oil has made landfall are based on reports from federal, state and local officials. They are placed on the map on the day of the earliest report, and may change as better reports become available.
About the Estimate of the Amount Spilled
Where the oil has gone, as of Aug. 1 (103 days into the spill), according to a government report.
The BP oil spill is the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters, according to flow estimates announced on Aug. 2 by a federal panel of scientists, called the Flow Rate Technical Group. The panel said that about 4.9 million barrels of oil have come out of the well, with about 800,000 barrels, or 17 percent, captured by BP’s containment efforts. Of the remaining 4.1 million barrels of oil that were released into the waters of the gulf, more than half had been burned or skimmed, or had already evaporated or dispersed by the beginning of August. This meant that about 1.3 million barrels of oil was still onshore as tar balls, buried under sand and sediment or floating on the ocean surface as a light sheen.
The totals in the chart to the right of the map are calculated beginning from the initial explosion at 10 p.m. on April 20 until the flow was stopped on July 15. Totals are adjusted from May 17 to May 25 for oil diverted through a narrow tube that was inserted into the well’s damaged pipe and from June 3 to June 15 for oil captured after a cap was successfully placed over the leak.
While both oil and gas are leaking from the well, the estimates here are only for the amount of oil. BP said in May that the fluid leaking was roughly half oil, half natural gas.
The previous largest accidental spill into a body of water was Ixtoc I, an exploratory oil well, which leaked at an estimated rate of 10,000 to 30,000 barrels per day for almost ten months until it was capped in March 1980. The total amount spilled was estimated to be 140 million gallons, or about 3.3 million barrels, of crude oil.
For more on the estimates, see these articles:
May 14: Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say
May 28: Estimates Suggest Spill Is Biggest in U.S. History
June 7: Rate of Oil Leak, Still Not Clear, Puts Doubt on BP
June 10: New Estimates Double Rate of Oil Leak
Related Multimedia
Oil Spill Remedies: Trial and Error in Deep Water
An interactive timeline of BP's efforts to stanch the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
