Oil spills at the Heidrun oil field in the North Sea

At the bottom left of this ERS-1 SAR image, acquired on 9 October 1993, a spill can be seen at the Heidrun oil field.

See the interpreted image to better identify the feature.

The spill contained 274 m3 of drilling fluid and came from the oil drilling platform that can be seen as a bright point nearby. The spill was released into the ocean within a day before the SAR overpass, but the very low wind speed of about 2.5 m/s (from the northeast) made it possible for the spill to remain at the surface.

NERSC, Bergen, Norway

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry