Long-term fate and persistence of the spilled Metula oil in a marine salt marsh environment: Degradation of petroleum biomarkers

Three coastal sites, heavily oiled from the 1974 Metula oil spill in the Strait of Magellan [two are salt marshes (East and West) and the third, an intertidal asphalt pavement], were examined during May 1998. Complete ‘total oil analyses’ were performed on the oil samples collected from these sites. Chemical fingerprinting data reveal, except for those samples from the East Marsh untreated plots which were only lightly to moderately weathered, that the spilled oil has undergone significant alteration in chemical composition after 24 years. There are no fundamental differences between the heavily weathered West Marsh and treated East Marsh samples. However, the effect of experimental filling action conducted in 1993 has been to substantially promote plant recolonization. The asphalt pavement samples indicate extremely high degradation of oil hydrocarbons, evidenced by a complete loss of n-alkanes from n-C8 to n-C41 and by depletion of greater than 98% of the alkylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon homologues. Even the most refractory biomarker compounds showed some degree of biodegradation. The biomarkers were generally degraded in the declining order of importance as follows: diasteranes>C27 steranes>tricyclic terpanes>pentacyclic terpanes>norhapanes∼C29-αββ-steranes.