GOM SAB - TERRA Oil Delineation 2017-04-25

2016-2018 data collected for a NOAA study on detecting oil slick coverage and thickness using remote sensing. The dataset includes synoptic satellite imagery, airborne imagery, surface oil characterization, and subsurface oil slick data from the Mississippi Canyon lease block #20 (MC20), a site of a chronic oil discharge since 2004. This research was funded by the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), and the Oil Spill Preparedness Division.

Use Cases

• Training machine learning models for oil slick thickness estimation based on remote sensing imagery.
• Analyzing spatial and temporal patterns of chronic oil discharges based on the MC20 site data.
• Developing methods for synoptic oil slick coverage mapping based on combined satellite and airborne imagery.
• Studying the relationship between surface oil characterization and subsurface slick data for environmental monitoring.

Strengths

• Data collection spans multiple years (2016, 2017, 2018) for temporal analysis.
• Integrates multiple data sources including satellite imagery, airborne imagery, and field characterization.
• Focuses on a specific, well-documented chronic discharge site (MC20, active since 2004).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is provided in PDF and HTML formats, which may require extraction for computational analysis.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

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

Time Range

2016-2018

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:30:21.168773; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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