About the Authors

Jacqueline Michel

jmichel@researchplanning.com

Affiliations Emergency Response Division, Office of Response and Restoration, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Research Planning, Inc., Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America

Edward H. Owens

Affiliation Owens Coastal Consultants, Ltd., Bainbridge Island, Washington, United States of America

Scott Zengel

Affiliations Emergency Response Division, Office of Response and Restoration, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Atkins, Tallahassee, Florida, United States of America

Andrew Graham

Affiliation Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc., Kirkland, Washington, United States of America

Zachary Nixon

Affiliations Emergency Response Division, Office of Response and Restoration, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Research Planning, Inc., Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America

Teresa Allard

Affiliation Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc., Kirkland, Washington, United States of America

William Holton

Affiliations Emergency Response Division, Office of Response and Restoration, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Research Planning, Inc., Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America

P. Doug Reimer

Affiliations Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc., Kirkland, Washington, United States of America, EML Environmental Mapping Limited, Saanichton, British Columbia, Canada

Alain Lamarche

Affiliations Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc., Kirkland, Washington, United States of America, Triox, Montréal, Quebec, Canada

Mark White

Affiliations Emergency Response Division, Office of Response and Restoration, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Research Planning, Inc., Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America

Nicolle Rutherford

Affiliation Emergency Response Division, Office of Response and Restoration, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Carl Childs

Affiliation Emergency Response Division, Office of Response and Restoration, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Gary Mauseth

Affiliation Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc., Kirkland, Washington, United States of America

Greg Challenger

Affiliation Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc., Kirkland, Washington, United States of America

Elliott Taylor

Affiliation Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc., Kirkland, Washington, United States of America

Competing Interests

Authors JM, ZN, MW and WH are employed by Research Planning, Inc. Author SZ is employed by Atkins. Author EHO is employed by Owens Coastal Consultants, Ltd., and was contracted to Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc. Author PDR is employed by EML Environmental Mapping Limited and is contracted to Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc. Author AL is employed by Triox and is contracted to Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc. Authors AG, TA, GC, ET and GM are employed by Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc. Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc., has a contract with BP to provide technical support to the SCAT Program. This work was conducted under the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Unified Command. Funding was provided by BP, as the Responsible Party. However, the NOAA, RPI, and Atkins authors were funded through NOAA, who is the Scientific Support Coordinator to the US Coast Guard. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JM EHO. Performed the experiments: SZ PDR AG NR CC GM GC ET. Analyzed the data: ZN WH MW TA AL. Wrote the paper: JM SZ ZN.