GOM WM UAS Oil Extent: Gulf of Mexico Oil Slick Coverage from UAV Surveys, 2016-2018

NOAA's Deepwater Horizon Lessons Learned Studies produced this dataset on oil slick detection methods. The research combined satellite imagery, airborne imagery, and surface characterization at the MC20 site, a location with a chronic oil discharge since 2004. Data shown here are from field research primarily funded by the U.S. Department of the Interior and NOAA in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Use Cases

• Training machine learning models for oil slick detection based on synoptic satellite and airborne imagery.
• Analyzing oil thickness and emulsion mixtures based on remote sensing platform data.
• Studying chronic oil discharge patterns based on multi-year field research at a specific site.
• Developing environmental response management applications based on integrated surface and subsurface data.

Strengths

• Data is part of a formal NOAA study on oil slick detection methods funded by U.S. government agencies.
• Research integrates multiple data sources: satellite imagery, airborne imagery, and surface characterization.
• Field research was conducted over three years (2016, 2017, 2018) at a real-world chronic discharge site.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Synoptic collection of satellite and airborne imagery, surface oil characterization, and subsurface data at the MC20 field site.

Time Range

Field research undertaken in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03 13 22:22:30.790002; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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