Organic Contaminants, Trace and Major Elements, and Nutrients in Water and Sediment Sampled in Response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Beach water and sediment samples were collected along the Gulf of Mexico coast to assess differences in contaminant concentrations before and after landfall of Macondo-1 well oil released into the Gulf of Mexico from the sinking of the British Petroleum Corporation’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform. Samples were collected at 70 coastal sites between May 7 and July 7, 2010, to document baseline, or “pre-landfall” conditions. A subset of 48 sites was resampled during October 4 to 14, 2010, after oil had made landfall on the Gulf of Mexico coast, called the “post-landfall” sampling period, to determine if actionable concentrations of oil were present along shorelines.