Pyrolysis of asphaltenes and biomarkers for the fingerprinting of the Amoco-Cadiz oil spill after 23 years

The geochemical technique of asphaltenes pyrolysis was successfully applied to the long-term monitoring of the Amoco-Cadiz oil spill 23 years after the wreck in the salt marshes of Île Grande, Northern Brittany, France. This method allows the reconstitution of the saturated fraction of the original oil from the asphaltenes fraction of severely degraded oil residues. The results showed that the oil reached a degradation rate of 60% relatively to the initial oil. The asphaltenes pyrolysis generated a gas chromatographic profile very similar to the original Amoco-Cadiz oil. In the biomarkers fraction, gas chromatographic/mass spectrometric (GC-MS) analyses demonstrated that terpanes were conserved whereas steranes were partly degraded. We also showed that the class of seco-hopanes biomarkers are conserved and can be used in the long-term monitoring of oil pollutions.