Figure 2-*. — Correspondence between chromatogram of water-accommodated 

 gasoline (upper) and lower molecular weight portion of plankton sample 205 

 flower) from the Ocean 250 spill. 



100 - 



V> 80 

 < 



60 





2 4 6 8 10 12 

 RT(min) increasing boiling point 



14 16 



— »• 



Figure 2-9. — Recovery of volatile gasoline components in saponification-estraction 

 procedure. (RT = retention dine.) 



most concentrated hydrocarbons in the standard, the naphthalene 

 and substituted naphthalenes were the most concentrated in the 

 plankton. Whether this is due to evaporative effects or selective up- 

 take is unknown. 



While there was not a good match in a quantitative sense be- 

 tween the plankton sample 205 and the gasoline standards 

 presumably due to evaporative losses, selective solubilization, 

 and/or selective uptake, there are two circumstantial considerations 

 which suggest that the gasoline-type components in plankton 

 sample 205 were from the Ocean 250 gasoline spill: 1) There were 

 18 different hydrocarbons in the gasoline which were also found in 

 this plankton sample; 2) this sample was collected near stations 

 which had measurable amounts of gasoline components in water 

 samples which were collected 2 d before the plankton samples (3-12 

 ppb gasoline hydrocarbons; J. Lake, footnote 10). 



such losses are also occurring in the environment, especially con- 

 sidering the wave action, and the lapse of 4 d of time between the 

 spill and the plankton collection. In addition to evaporative losses in 

 the environment, the plankton may also selectively incorporate, 

 metabolize, or retain only certain portions of the water- 

 accommodated gasoline or gasoline droplets. A comparison of 

 panels in Figure 2-8 shows that, while the alkyl benzenes are the 



Acknowledgments. — The laboratory analyses were support- 

 ed by EPA grant R805477, and the ship time was funded by 

 NOAA. 



We wish to thank Carolyn Griswold, NMFS, for the sample 

 collection and data collection; James Lake and Barbara Kyle, EPA, 

 for the water-accommodated gasoline standard; the USCG for the 

 samples of gasoline from the barge; and Kurt Norwood for the 

 GSMS identification of aromatic components in the gasoline. 



12 



