1) Surface oil was determined to be not a good indicator of subsurface
oil.
2) Twenty subsurface pits were classified as heavily oiled. Oil
saturated all of the interstitial spaces and was extremely repugnant.
These “worst case” pits exhibited an oil mixture that resembled oil
encountered in 1989 a few weeks after the spill - highly odiferous,
lightly weathered, and very fluid.
3) Subsurface oil was also found at a lower tide height than expected
(between 0 and 6 feet), in contrast to the surface oil, which was found
mostly at the highest levels of the beach (Table 3). This is
significant, because the pits with the most oil were found low in the
intertidal zone, closest to the zone of biological production, and
indicate that our estimates are conservative at best.