Oil trapped between rocks on a beach in the Gulf of Alaska. New research being presented at the Ocean Sciences Meeting finds that beaches on the Alaska Peninsula hundreds of kilometers from the site of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill still harbor small hidden pockets of oil. Photo by Gail Irvine / USGS
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Twenty-five years after the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, beaches on the Alaska Peninsula hundreds of kilometers from the incident still harbor small hidden pockets of surprisingly unchanged oil, according to new research…
The rocky, high-energy coastlines in the Shelikof Strait, southwest of the spill, contain small remnants of the spill which appear to be protected by a stable boulder and cobble “armor,” says Gail Irvine of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Science Center.
