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An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially marine areas, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually applied to marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters, but spills may also occur on land. Oil spills may be due to releases of crude oil from tankers, offshore platforms, drilling rigs and wells, as well as spills of refined petroleum products (such as gasoline, diesel) and their by-products, heavier fuels used by large ships such as bunker fuel, or the spill of any oily refuse or waste oil. Oil spills penetrate into the structure of the plumage of birds and the fur of mammals, reducing its insulating ability, and making them more vulnerable to temperature fluctuations and much less buoyant in the water. Cleanup and recovery from an oil spill is difficult and depends upon many factors, including the type of oil spilled, the temperature of the water (affecting evaporation and biodegradation), and the types of shorelines and beaches involved. Spills may take weeks, months or even years to clean up. Oil spills can have disastrous consequences for society; both economically, environmentally, and socially. As a result of these consequences oil spill accidents can initiate intense media attention and political uproar. Multiple kinds of actors in society can become involved in a political struggle on how government should respond to oil spills and what actions prevent them from happening. Despite substantial national and international policy improvements on preventing oil spills adopted in recent decades, large oil spills keep occurring. ==Largest oil spills== (詳細はtanker ship accidents have damaged natural ecosystems in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, the Galapagos Islands, France and many other places. The quantity of oil spilled during accidents has ranged from a few hundred tons to several hundred thousand tons (e.g., Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Atlantic Empress, Amoco Cadiz)〔(www.scientificamerican.com 20150-04-20 How BP's Blowout Ranks among Top 5 Oil Spills in 1 Graphic )〕 but is a limited barometer of damage or impact. Smaller spills have already proven to have a great impact on ecosystems, such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill because of the remoteness of the site or the difficulty of an emergency environmental response. Oil spills at sea are generally much more damaging than those on land, since they can spread for hundreds of nautical miles in a thin oil slick which can cover beaches with a thin coating of oil. This can kill seabirds, mammals, shellfish and other organisms it coats. Oil spills on land are more readily containable if a makeshift earth dam can be rapidly bulldozed around the spill site before most of the oil escapes, and land animals can avoid the oil more easily. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「oil spill」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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