Helicopter NMR prepares to detect Arctic oil spills

Exploiting the Earth’s magnetic field, researchers in the US and Canada have developed an innovative way to detect a grim prospective problem: pollution from increased shipping in the Arctic. The team, including Albuquerque, US-based NMR innovators ABQMR and their Dallas-headquartered compatriot oil giant ExxonMobil, built a giant coil 6m in diameter that folds up into a transport container. Once unfolded, spill-seekers can suspend the coil from a helicopter, rest it gently on Arctic ice, then use it to send radio-frequency pulses and detect the resulting NMR signals. The scientists have shown that this coil can detect the equivalent of an 8mm-thick layer of oil in a few minutes, explains ABQMR scientist Eiichi Fukushima.