title: Combining molecular fingerprints with multidimensional scaling analyses to identify the source of spilled oil from highly similar suspected oils.
abstract: Oil fingerprints have been a powerful tool widely used for determining the source of spilled oil. In most cases, this tool works well. However, it is usually difficult to identify the source if the oil spill accident occurs during offshore petroleum exploration due to the highly similar physiochemical characteristics of suspected oils from the same drilling platform. In this report, a case study from the waters of the South China Sea is presented, and multidimensional scaling analysis (MDS) is introduced to demonstrate how oil fingerprints can be combined with mathematical methods to identify the source of spilled oil from highly similar suspected sources. The results suggest that the MDS calculation based on oil fingerprints and subsequently integrated with specific biomarkers in spilled oils is the most effective method with a great potential for determining the source in terms of highly similar suspected oils.
authors.affiliation: South China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, PR China.
authors.forename: Peiyu
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: South China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, PR China.
authors.forename: Changshu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: South China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, PR China.
authors.forename: Jianjun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.affiliation: School of Earth Science and Geological Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, PR China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources & Geological Processes, Guangzhou 510275, PR China.
authors.forename: Wenjie
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: South China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiaofei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xiong
authors.affiliation: South China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, PR China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: South China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, PR China.
authors.forename: Hongda
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: South China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, PR China.
authors.forename: Chuguang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, PR China. Electronic address: ygsun@zju.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yongge
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers; D002681:China; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010578:Petroleum / Q000032:analysis; D059392:Petroleum Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D010578:Petroleum; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Highly similar suspected-sources; Multidimensional scaling (MDS); Offshore spilled oil; Oil fingerprints; Source identification