Coast Guard: tar balls believed to be from Gulf of Mexico oil spill wash up on Alabama island

[Turborama]

Source: AP

A Coast Guard official says tar balls that are believed to be from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are washing up on an Alabama island.

Coast Guard chief warrant officer Adam Wine said about a half dozen tar balls had been collected by Saturday afternoon at Dauphin Island. He says the substance needs to be tested, but officials think it came from the oil spill.

The barrier island is at the mouth of Mobile Bay and about three miles from the coast.

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Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-us-gulf-oil-spill,0,1622568.story

[county worker]

1. We always have tar balls on our south facing beaches. Baby oil takes it off.

They are from natural seepage. You walk in the surf and your feet have black tar stuck to them.

[tabasco]

2. How nice for you.

The tar balls discussed in the article are from a disastrous and destructive oil spill.

[FBI_Un_Sub]

5. Tar Balls

Come from the evaporation of the "light" fractions of crude (e.g., methane, ethane, propane, butane) leaving behind the heavier (liquid and "tarry" fractions) which would normally be used for tar, asphalt. I have seen it come from spillage at a river front oil barge terminal.

The methane hydrate is something else. It comes the quick freezing of entrapped/entrained water in the complex mixture that is crude oil. The is called Joule Thomson Throttling and cools the mixture as it goes from extremely high pressure in the well to just high pressure.

Nothing magic or political.

[Turborama]

3. "Natural seepage" from what?

Is there a lot of oil close to the surface in that area?

[county worker]

4. It comes up from the sea bed and the waves move them on shore.

We do have lots of oil rigs off shore but that is not where the tar balls come from. Santa Barbara, CA beaches face south.

[HooptieWagon]

6. Santa Barbara does have natural oil seepage...

It was noticed back in the 1800s, long before there was drilling.

[eagertolearn]

7. But the seepage after 1969 was so much worst.

My mom grew up there and she does not remember it being much of a problem before the 1969 oil spill. I was 11 when that happened and only remember tar on the beach growing up but was gone from age 6-10 so my memory isn't good before then.

[XemaSab]

8. The native americans used tar

to caulk their canoes.

Better oil comes onshore as tar balls than as liquid oil.

[eagertolearn]

9. Its pretty much all the same. Litttle tiny flecks of tar get all over everything.

Last time we were there visiting we all came away with tar all over our bathing suits and boggie boards. Did not come off and bathing suits are not cheap!