Table 1-3. — Summary of fish and invertabrate species collected on RV Stricter 

 cruise 78-01 in trawls and by dredge in the area of Ocean 250 grounding; selected 

 species were analyzed for hydrocarbons. Crosses indicate present in sample, analyz- 

 ed for hydrocarbons by Energy Resources Company; solid circles indicate present 

 in sample, analyzed for hydrocarbons by Environmental Protection Agency; open 

 circles indicate present in sample. 



Trawl stations 



Fox Rocking chair 

 Island dredge stations 



Species 



Macrozoarces americanus 



Scophlhalmus aquosus 



Pseudopleuronectes americanus 



Limanda ferruginea 



Raja erinacea 



Myoxocephalus octodecemspinosus 



Hemitripterus americanus 



Clupea harengus 



Tautogolabrus adspersus 



Gadus morhua 



Liparis sp. 



Menidia menidia 



Poiinices herns 



Mercenaria mercenaria 



Asterias forbesi 



Cancer irroratus 



Placopeclen magellanicus 



Modiolus modiolus 



2.0 CHEMICAL ANALYSES 



2.1 Introduction 



A need to understand the potentially deleterious ecological ef- 

 fects of spills of petroleum fuels has resulted in extensive research to 

 examine the impact of these pollutants on marine and intertidal en- 

 vironments. Although the ecological effects of spills of crude oil 

 (Benyon 1967; Smith 1968; Hess 1978), No. 2 fuel oil (Blumer et al. 

 1970 4 ; Bums and Teal 1971 '), and bunker C and #6 fuel oil (Scaratt 

 and Sitko 1972; Gross and Mattson 1977) have been extensively in- 

 vestigated, only limited data are available concerning the impact of 

 gasoline spills. The 16 March 1978 grounding of the Ocean 250 on 

 Watch Hill Reef and the release of 2.6 million liters of gasoline into 

 Block Island Sound presented an opportunity to examine the im- 

 pact of gasoline on the marine environments. In response to the 

 spill, a series of joint cruises was organized and conducted by per- 

 sonnel from the NMFS, EPA, and the Graduate School of 

 Oceanography, TJRI. The cruises were undertaken to collect 

 samples in order to determine the content of gasoline in the water 

 and to examine the extent of impact of these compounds on 

 zooplankton, fish, and benthic organisms. The following three sec- 

 tions present the results of the studies. 



2.2 Chemical Analyses of Water and Benthic Organisms 



This section was prepared by J. L. Lake, 6 C. W. Dimock, 7 C. 

 Norwood, 6 R. Bowen, 7 and B. Kyle. 7 



'Blumer, M., J. Sass, G. Souza, H. L. Sanders, J. F. Gassle, and G. R. 

 Hampson. 1970. The West Falmouth oil spill. Woods Hole Oceanogr. Inst., 

 Tech. Rep. 70-44, 32 p. 



'Burns, K. A., and J. M. Teal. 1971. Hydrocarbon incorporation into the 

 salt marsh ecosystem from the West Falmouth oil spill. Woods Hole Oceanogr. 

 Inst., Tech. Rep. 71-69, 24 p. 



Sampling and analytical procedures. — Water samples were ob- 

 tained on the first cruise (17 March), at the stations shown (Fig. 

 2-1). These 6 liter samples were obtained with a 5 liter Niskin bottle 

 at a depth of 3.5 ( ±0.5) m and extracted on board with 300 ml of 

 methylene chloride. These extracts were passed through Na 2 SO„ to 

 remove residual water and then reduced in volume in a Kudema- 

 Danish evaporator fitted with a three ball Snyder reflux column. 

 The samples were solvent exchanged to hexane, reduced in volume 

 under a stream of nitrogen to 0. 1 ml, and stored at - 5 °C. 



Samples of filter-feeding bivalves were obtained on the second 

 cruise (18 March) at the stations shown in Figure 2-1. Samples of 

 horse mussel, Modiolus modiolus, and hard shell clam, Mercenaria 

 mercenaria, were collected at station 1 with a rocking chair dredge, 

 and sea scallop, Placopecten magellanicus, were collected at station 

 12 with a trawl. Samples were placed in plastic bags, packed in ice, 

 and then frozen at the laboratory until analysis. Thawed samples 

 were dissected, and the tissues digested for 16 h at 37 °C in 4N 

 NaOH in glass centrifuge tubes with Teflon-lined screw caps. The 

 digested tissues were then extracted with methylene chloride. The 

 organic phase was passed through a column of Na 2 SO„ and silica 

 gel to remove interfering material, and subsequently reduced in 

 volume and solvent exchanged to hexane. Selected tissue samples 

 were separated on a second column of silica gel into an aliphatic 

 and an aromatic hydrocarbon fraction. All fractions were reduced 

 in volume to 0. 1 ml under a stream of nitrogen and stored at — 5 °. 



To prevent an excessive loss of the more volatile, low 

 molecular weight components of the gasoline, the extracts of the 

 samples were never evaporated to dryness. Procedural blanks were 

 processed with samples in order to determine if contamination had 

 occurred. 



Several gasolines were spilled by the barge. Standards of the 

 gasolines were obtained from the USCG at Groton, Conn. A neat 

 gasoline standard, a neat gasoline standard diluted in hexane, and a 

 water-accommodated fraction of the gasoline (prepared by shaking 

 10 ml of gasoline from the #1 port and 10 ml of gasoline from the 

 #1 starboard tanks with 2 liters of sea water, and allowing the mixture 

 to separate for 6 h before extraction) were analyzed to determine 

 the efficiency of the analytical method. 



Water and shellfish samples were analyzed in a Hewlett 

 Packard 5840A gas chromatograph equipped with a glass capillary 

 column and a splitless injection port. The temperature program was 

 35 °C for 4 min and then 5°C/min to 250 °C. The areas of the 

 chromatograms ranging from peak 1 (Table 2-1) (C 2 -benzene) 

 through peak 15 (C 2 -naphthalene) were integrated. Quantifications 

 were obtained by relating these areas to areas of known alkyl 

 benzene and alkyl naphthalene standards. 



The gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) 

 analyses were performed on a 30 m OV-101 glass capillary column 

 in a Schimazdu model GC-4CM. This gas chromatograph was in- 

 terfaced with a Finnegan 1015 mass spectrometer equipped with a 

 Systems Industries Data System. 



Results. — Comparison of the analysis of the neat gasoline 

 standard with that of the standard diluted in hexane showed that 

 the solvent peak on gas chromatograms interfered with only a small 

 number of the lowest molecular weight gasoline compounds 

 (Dimock et al. 1980). Peaks in procedural blanks (Fig 2-2) were 



'Environmental Protection Agency, South Ferry Road, Narragansett, RI 02882. 

 'Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 

 02881. 



