Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

On April 20, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig experienced a series of malfunctions and subsequent explosions that disengaged the rig from its drill and killed eleven workers onboard. The explosion damaged the wellhead 5,000 feet below the surface, and crude oil flowed from the damaged wellhead until a containment cap was put in place on July 15, 2010.

The Earth Scan Laboratory has been tracking the oil that reaches the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The image to the right is a composite of three satellite images all captured around June 14, 2010: calculated sea surface temperatures captured by the MODIS sensor aboard NASA's Aqua-1 satellite with microwave imagery from Radarsat-1 and Envisat superimposed. See links below for surveillance of this environmental crisis.

              * High Resolution SAR archive
              * All GOES SST/Radar imagery
              * The best of our MODIS truecolor and GOES/SAR archives
              * High resolution MODIS truecolor archive
              * CSTARS @ UMiami's Microwave imagery archive
              * Animation of MODIS imagery of oil slick
              * NOLA.com synthesized oil spill graphic

              * SST LC animation April 26 - May 28
              * SSH LC animation April 20 - August 21
              * CCAR oil particle model April 22 - May 31
              * SST/SSH Frontal Eddies April 20 - May 31