GC-MS methods used to analyse tar balls

Tar balls that have shown up on the coast of Florida after the Deepwater Horizon spill are being analysed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).

Although it was originally thought that the lumps were a result of oil from the Gulf of Mexico disaster caught by the Loop Current into the Florida Straits, studies of the tar balls have revealed otherwise.

Dr Wayne Gronlund, manager of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Laboratory, told FastCompany.com: "We have samples taken from the spill and we have these tar balls. We compare those using analytical chemical methods, specifically gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry."

The analyst said that the tar balls definitely do not come from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but it is possible that future rocks showing up on Florida's shores could be a result of the incident.

Researchers at the IASMA Research and Innovation Centre Fondazione Edmund Mach in San Michele all'Adige, Italy, recently applied gas chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques to test whether cosmetics had come from shark oil.