Compositional properties characterizing commonly tranported oils and controlling their fate in the marine environment.

Oil spills relating to shipping incidents remain of substantial concern with respect to marine pollution. Whilst most frequently a reactive approach is adopted in post-incident monitoring (for the specific product involved), this paper reports important physical and compositional characteristics of commonly transported oils and oil products to afford pro-active assessments. These properties include specific gravity, viscosity, elemental composition and, of particular relevance, the relative class compositions between aliphatics, aromatics, resins and asphaltenes. The latter were determined experimentally using thin layer chromatography with flame ionization detection. Diagnostic ratios of specific compounds are reported, statistically analysed, and their significance in identification of different oil types and the weathering processes is discussed. The influence of the properties on fates under different environmental conditions (selected to represent contrasting European regional seas) are examined using the NOAA Automated Data Inquiry for Oil Spills (ADIOS2) model. Relative contributions of the different environmental conditions and properties to the fate of the oil at sea are discussed.Financial support was obtained from the MCINN, Spain (CTM2008-02718-E/MAR and -02721-E/MAR) and Defra, UK (Project Ref. ME1312) through the project ‘‘European concerted action to foster prevention and best response to accidental marine pollution – AMPERA’’ (ERAC-CT2005-016165) within the framework of the EU ERA-Net Initiative (6th Framework Program). J.R.R. kindly acknowledges a pre-doctoral fellowship (JAE Predoc) from the Spanish National Council of Research (CSIC) and European Social Fund (ESF). Dr Luis Carlos Quintero Toscano is greatly acknowledged for providing oil assays data. Dr D. Calderon-Preciado is acknowledged for her help with the statistical analyses, Dr N. Jimenez for GC-MS of oil samples and Mrs Altamira Arcos for technical assistance in TLC-FID analyses.Peer Reviewe