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NOS drift card used to track 1976 oil spill found

A drift card released near Nantucket, Massachusetts was found 48 years later and 3,000 miles away in Scotland.

A hand holding an old plastic drift card with reporting information imprinted on it held up in front of a shoreline.

Back of the drift card found in Scotland on October 22, 2024. Image credit: Barbara Payne.

On October 22, 2024, Scotland resident Barbara Payne was cleaning up after a storm that tossed seaweed and other debris near her home on the Isle of Coll. As an avid beachcomber, Barbara noticed among the debris a red, credit-card size piece of plastic with writing on it. Upon closer inspection, she found instructions to report the finding to NOAA. After a quick online search, she learned about similar drift cards found in other countries.

A woman in winter clothes holding a plastic drift card in one hand with a shoreline in the background at sunset.

Barbara Payne, resident of the Isle of Coll, Inner Hebrides, Scotland, shows the drift card that she found as she was raking seaweed on October 22, 2024. Image credit: Barbara Payne.

So what was it? The card, and thousands like it, were distributed into the ocean as a tool to help track oil pollution from the stricken tanker, Argo Merchant. Drift cards are sometimes released as a part of an oil spill response to gather information about the direction of the currents in an area and the possible trajectory of an oil spill. Historically, drift cards were made of plastic, but today they are made of bio-degradable wood, coated with bright, non-toxic paint to reduce harm to the environment.

An old plastic drift card with reporting information imprinted on it.

Front of the drift card found in Scotland on October 22, 2024. Image credit: Barbara Payne.

On December 15, 1976, the 640-foot Argo Merchant tanker ran aground on a sandbar off the coast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. After attempts to save the vessel and remove the oil, the vessel succumbed to the high winds and heavy seas of the North Atlantic in winter, spilling more than 7.5 million gallons of oil. It was the largest tanker spill in U.S. history at the time.

Lessons learned from the Argo Merchant and other spills over the past 48 years have improved NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration’s ability to respond and restore the impacts of oil spills. One scientific study conducted on this spill worked to predict where the oil might spread and behave in the North Atlantic. Understanding the oil movement would improve response efforts and help understand what natural resources — such as birds and fisheries — might be at risk from this spill. The drift cards were designed to be just barely buoyant and travel like floating oil.

So how did the card get to Scotland? The Gulf Stream follows the eastern coastline of the United States and Newfoundland. It is part of the North Atlantic Gyre, a clockwise-rotating system of currents also called an “ocean conveyor belt.” The gyre carries warm water from the tropics up to the North Atlantic, moderating the temperatures there, but also carrying floating objects. The drift card followed the currents of the North Atlantic Gyre that ultimately led it to the shoreline of Scotland.

A map of the North Atlantic Ocean with a red transect line connecting the United States to the United Kingdom.

Map showing the distance from the spill site (29 miles southeast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, U.S.A.) to the location where a drift card was found on the Isle of Coll in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland. Image credit: NOAA.

While the oil the drift card was designed to track has long dissipated and degraded, and the shipwreck itself broken up by North Atlantic storms, the plastic card persisted as a small time capsule and reminder of one of the major spills in U.S. waters that set the foundation for NOAA's pollution response work today.