The Collaborative International Dictionary
oil spill \oil" spill`\ n. A layer of oil floating on water or covering the shoreline of a body of water; -- usually petroleum which has leaked from an oil tanker.
Wikipedia
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; economically, environmentally, and socially. As a result, oil spill accidents have initiated intense media attention and political uproar, bringing many together in a political struggle concerning government response to oil spills and what actions can best prevent them from happening. Despite substantial national and international policy improvements on preventing oil spills adopted in recent decades, large oil spills keep occurring.
Usage examples of "oil spill".
Half the oil from the Ustinov was already offloaded, but spilling half a million barrels of crude oil into the Black Sea would certainly qualify as the world's biggest oil spill, more than double the size of the enormous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska.
Our team quickly discovered the oil spill was no accident: before the tanker’.
This year, every day, in New York harbor alone, we've had an oil spill.
The ship must be stopped outside the Golden Gate, but to fire on her and risk causing a monstrous oil spill is out of the question.
Gus was covered in filthy dungarees and a coat that looked as if it had survived the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Impossible to drive, though earlier he had driven, had made it to Little Despond and back, following up on the oil spill.
If I recall our previous conversations correctly, you will be able to move quite close to the center of both the fire and oil spill.
Black letters on the car's iridescent green flank read REMEMBER THE GREAT ALASKA OIL SPILL!
Whenever a tanker has an accident that causes structural rupture and there's a chance of an oil spill, a nozzle system sprays all the crude in the damaged section with gelling agents that turn the oil into a solid glob, right ?