mousse sample (Recovery Tank) containing 12-18% water, had been col- 

 lected the second day ot the spill i rum a barge tank after the oi] had 

 been vacuum-pumped from the sea surface inside i containment boom placed 

 immediately adjacent to the grounded vessel. Residence time of the free 

 oil was estimated by the Asko scientists to be on the order oi minuti 

 to perhaps as long as an hour. 



The oil collected on the east side oi Svardsf jarden had been carried 

 there by the wind and was estimated to have been exposed to wi tthi i Lng 

 for at least three days. The sample from the boom near the grounded 

 Tsesis may have been more intermediate in age due to its close proximity 

 to the grounded vessel. 



There appears to have been a slight degree of weathering ol the 



n-paraffins below n-C, „ in the oldest oil collected in Svardsf jarden, 



although this evaporative loss was slight. For example, the equivalent 



n-paraffin carbon number where environmental losses of 50% are evident 



in the unresolved envelope under the n-alkane peaks (using the method of 



Blumer et al., 1973) shifted from 11.8 n-paraffin equivalent carbon 



numbers for the unweathered oil, to 12.6 for Svardsf jarden oil. The 



saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbon contents of the oil in the boom 



near the vessel and the oil taken from the recovery tank were similar to 



the cargo oil, but the oil from Svardsf jarden showed a marked decrease 



in both fractions with an apparent increase in material not recovered 



from the silica gel/alumina chromatography. This result suggested an 



increase in polar material in the Svardsf jarden sample which had the 



longest time available for weathering. The plotted n-paraffin patterns 



show nearly identical shapes, though there is visual evidence for some 



possible loss below n-C in the more heavilv weathered Svardsf jarden 



— lo 



slick mousse sample (Fig. 5.2.1). 



5.3 Water samples with a sterile bag sampler 



Details of the water column study (methods and results) are not 

 reported here because the data were invalidated by a sample processing 

 error. All water column sampling performed by the U.S. team was done 

 using a Niskin sterile plastic bag, "Butterfly" sampler. This sampler 



