Gulf of Mexico Oil On Water Sampling Photos from 2016

NOAA collected these photos as part of the Deepwater Horizon Lessons Learned Studies on detecting oil thickness and emulsion mixtures. The research, funded by the U.S. Department of the Interior and BSEE, involved synoptic collection of satellite and airborne imagery at the MC20 chronic oil discharge site. Field research for this study was undertaken in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Use Cases

• Training computer vision models for oil slick detection based on aerial imagery.
• Analyzing oil emulsion mixtures and thickness estimation based on surface oil characterization data.
• Calibrating satellite and airborne remote sensing platforms based on field-collected ground truth data.
• Studying chronic oil discharge patterns from the MC20 site based on multi-year field surveys.

Strengths

• Data is part of a formal NOAA study funded by the U.S. Department of the Interior and BSEE.
• Research involved synoptic collection from multiple platforms (satellite, airborne, surface) for method validation.
• Field research spans multiple years (2016, 2017, 2018) at a known chronic discharge site.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset scale are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Primary file formats are PDF and HTML, which may not be optimal for direct image analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce.

Collection Method

Field research involving synoptic collection of satellite imagery, airborne imagery, and surface oil characterization.

Time Range

Field research undertaken in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03 13 22:24:25.026067; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Mississippi Canyon lease block #20 (MC20) in the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana, North America.