May 9th, 2010 6:37 AM

Black clumps looking like charcoal wash up on Dauphin Island

By Ben Raines

May 09, 2010, 5:00AM

View full size(Press-Register/Ben Raines)Tarballs thought to be from the Deepwater Horizon explosion came ashore on Dauphin Island Saturday.Glistening black clumps were scattered amongst the seashells at the edge of the surf on Dauphin Island Saturday afternoon.

Pliable and smooth to the touch, they looked like nothing so much as bits of charcoal. Some were smaller than a dime, others up to 2 inches across. Rubbing them between your fingers for a moment produced an odor akin to lighter fluid.

Dauphin Island officials said tarballs began washing up around noon. By 8 p.m., officials responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill released a press release announcing that samples from the island had been sent to a lab for analysis.

Press-Register reporters found what were best described as tar patties spread over several miles of beachfront. They were flat and irregularly shaped. Some appeared to have been worn smooth after tumbling in the surf, while the smaller pieces had jagged edges, as if they had broken off from larger hunks.

The clumps were not evenly distributed along the shore, but were instead gathered in places where currents deposited large numbers of seashells. Sandpipers and other shorebirds could be seen skirting along the edges of the receding waves, apparently unfazed by what may be the first local sign of the growing oil spill in the Gulf. There was no visible sheen on the water, and pelicans and terns dove into schools of fish just offshore.

Ed Overton, an LSU scientist who has been analyzing oil from the spill for federal officials, predicted that tar patties could wash ashore for months as oil weathered and drifted in from the Deepwater Horizon's broken and gushing wellhead 100 miles due south of Mobile.

Dozens of men in white protective suits, yellow boots and black gloves prowled Dauphin Island's public beach on Saturday, stooping every now and then to pick up black bits. Some carried garbage bags, others were dumping the material into small sandwich baggies. 

Type the characters you see in this picture, click "Submit" when finished.

		This helps us prevent automated programs from creating bogus contacts and adding them to your contacts database.