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The Scientific Heritage of the December 1976 Argo Merchant Oil Spill

DECEMBER 16, 2016--Doug Helton, of OR&R’s Emergency Response Division, gave a webinar on December 15 as part of the NOS/NOAA Seminar Series on the Argo Merchant oil spill.

Forty years ago, on December 15, 1976, the tanker Argo Merchant ran aground on Nantucket Shoals, off the Massachusetts Coast. A week later, the vessel broke in half, spilling nearly 8 million gallons of heavy fuel oil. The incident is still one of the largest oil spills in U.S. history, and one of the first spills where NOAA had a significant scientific response role. But not the last. Lessons learned from the Argo Merchant and other spills over the past 40 years have improved NOAA’s ability to respond and restore the impacts of oil spills. The presentation summarized the environmental and scientific heritage of the Argo Merchant oil spill and its pivotal role in the history of NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration.

This talk was part of an OR&R outreach campaign commemorating the spill, which played an important part in the development of the Office of Response and Restoration. View the photo gallery developed for this campaign on the OR&R website.

For further information, contact Doug.Helton@noaa.gov or Donna.L.Roberts@noaa.gov.

Go back to OR&R Weekly Report.

Big ship in rough seas.
Argo Merchant on December 15, 1976. (U.S. Coast Guard Historian)
Last updated Tuesday, November 8, 2022 1:52pm PST