CMA Presents "Petroleum, NASA, and the 21st Century Oil Spill Response"

Presented By: Caltech Y

The Caltech Management Association & the Caltech Y Social Activism Speaker Series are presenting a lecture by Ira Leifer, associate researcher at UC Santa Barbara's Marine Sciences Institute. Leifer will give a talk called "Petroleum, NASA, and a 21st Century Oil Spill Response"

This event is free, and no tickets are required.
A reception with the speaker will follow.

The Deepwater Horizon/Macondo oil well accident released an unprecedented quantity of oil into the northern Gulf of Mexico marine and littoral environment (~1 billion liters).

NASA responded to this disaster by mobilizing the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) instrument as well as other airborne and spaceborne assets. Analysis of the captured data allowed mapping of the complex coastal wetlands ecosystem as it existed before the oil inundation. In addition, new AVIRIS flights are providing post-inundation data. A novel approach to analyzing this data helped bound the estimates of the Macondo well oil release by allowing the measurement of oil-slick thickness. Please join us as Ira Leifer discusses this approach, which uses the U.S. Geological Survey–developed "Tetracorder" algorithm and quantifies the oil-to-water ratio and the fractional oil coverage.