Weathering and oil spill simulations in the aftermath of tanker accidents at the junction points in the Marmara Sea.

Abstract

Marmara Sea connected to the Black Sea by the Istanbul Strait (Bosporus) and to the Aegean Sea by the Canakkale Strait (Dardanelles), is separating the continents of Europe and Asia. The rise in the volume of maritime traffic on the Strait and the Sea of Marmara has increased the risk of maritime accidents, and around 700 ship accidents have been recorded since 1948. In the first stage of the present work, the risky region of Marmara Sea was chosen for simulation studies. It was assumed that 1000 tons of medium crude oil may be spilled in the aftermath of a tanker accident. The oil spill was then determined with respect to time and space by considering two different wind directions and scales. The simulation code GNOME was utilized to generate the oil spill scenarios. Results of simulation showed that spill did not reach the coast in the first three simulations but reached the coast in the fourth simulation. In the second stage of the work, weathering calculations for spilled oil were carried out by using ADIOS2. In these analyses, oil budget, viscosity and airborne benzene were estimated. Weathering calculations showed that more than 40 % of oil evaporates between 0 and 12 hours.