Examples would be things like well blowouts, pipeline breaks, ship collisions or groundings, overfilling of gas tanks and bilge pumping from ships, leaking underground storage tanks, and oil-contaminated water runoff from streets and parking lots during rain storms. Apart from oil spills caused by human actions, oil also is released into the environment from natural oil seeps in the ocean bottom. One of the best-known areas where this happens is Coal Oil Point along the California Coast near Santa Barbara. An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 gallons of crude oil is released naturally from the ocean bottom every day just a few miles offshore from this beach. Faster currents and winds can make oil spread faster.
Temperature can sometimes make a difference in how fast an oil spreads.
We have to remember that when responding to oil spills in arctic areas. You can test how oils spread with our Oil Floats and Spreads experiment. Q. I'm researching oil spills in rivers. I have heard that there is a different way of cleaning up river spills. A. Oil spills on rivers can indeed behave differently than spills in the open ocean or in bays.