Above: When the Argo Merchant ran aground in December 1976, it was carrying 7.7 million gallons of No. 6 fuel oil, a heavy refined oil. Its grounding was due to navigational errors. The vessel was found to be 24 miles off course, and carrying two unqualified crew as helmsman, a broken gyrocompass, outdated maps, and an inaccurate radio direction finder. (Photo Credit: Coast Guard Historian; Inset Photo Credit NOAA: a March 1977 NOAA technical report about the Argo Merchant oil spill.)
A plastic drift card released on December 27, 1976 near Nantucket, Massachusetts was found 3,000 miles away and 48 years later on the Isle of Coll in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland.
A “drift card” recently found on the shores of Scotland 3,000 miles from where it was originally released 48 years ago became a part of oil and gas industry history late last year as a small time capsule reminder of one of the major spills in U.S. waters that set the foundation for NOAA’s pollution response work today.
Barbara Payne, a longtime resident of the Isle of Coll off the coast of Scotland, was cleaning up after a storm on October 22, 2024 that had tossed seaweed and other debris on the road to her house. As an avid beachcomber, she was careful to sort through the mess and remove any plastic debris. Suddenly, she noticed a red, credit-card size piece of plastic that had some writing on it. Closer inspection showed that it had instructions in English, French, and Spanish to report the find to “NOAA” in Boulder, Colorado. Barbara did a quick online search and found NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (ORR) blog posts about similar drift cards found in France and Portugal and Cornwall, England.
Drift cards are often released as a part of an oil spill response to gather information about the direction of the currents in an area, and hence, the possible drift of an oil spill. Drift cards can also indicate where other things, such as stricken fishing boats, marine debris, plankton, or even sewage, might drift. Historically, drift cards were made of plastic, but those used today are made of bio-degradable wood, coated with bright, non-toxic paint to reduce harm to the environment. On the cards are instructions asking the finder to report the date and location found.
The card, and thousands like it, were intentionally distributed into the ocean as a tool to help track oil pollution from the stricken tanker Argo Merchant after it ran aground on Nantucket Island in December 1976 on a dark and stormy night. Today, drift card studies have a number of benefits, including being inexpensive, which allows the ORR to do small studies over a broad range of environmental conditions and over a fairly long period of time, with the added advantage of volunteer assistants!
- For more details and photos of Barbara with her drift cards, click HERE.
- To read about the history and see more photos of the Argo Merchant, click HERE.
Before the 1970s, many important scientific studies were conducted via bottle. Drift bottles were eventually replaced by drift cards made of wood, aerial photography, and the development of satellite networks.
Scientists would carefully seal messages into glass containers and throw them from ships or planes in specific locations. Sometimes, 4H clubs would even assist with the work.
Citizens who found bottles with cards were often paid small amounts of money for their return. A Bureau of Commercial Fisheries study conducted between 1962-1963 included more than 7,000 bottles filled with postcards in both English and Spanish, each offering a reward of 50 cents if the card was mailed back to the laboratory doing the study. Respondents were asked to record the exact location and time that they found the bottle.
Researchers then made maps detailing where and when each bottle was found. The data provided insights into how currents moved through remote parts of the ocean. For the Fisheries study, researchers used the results to figure out how changes in currents affected shrimp crops.
A more modern method for studying ocean drift is NOAA’s Global Drifter Program, which entails drifting buoys, or “drifters”—beach ball-sized buoys in the water. Unlike Argo floats or gliders that dive underwater, drifters float at the surface of the ocean. Drifters can measure temperature, salinity, sea level pressure, wind, currents, and even wave properties. There are currently about 1,300 drifters in the global ocean as part of the Global Drifter Program.
Today NOAA is able to provide incredibly detailed views of a changing ocean in real time thanks to drifters, satellites, GPS-enabled sensors and powerful computers, without tossing bottles with notes into the water!