Radiocarbon data from plankton, water column particulates and sediment and coastal fauna, northern Gulf of Mexico, July 2010 through May 2013

Evidence of petroleum-derived carbon entering the offshore planktonic foodweb, as well as widespread oiling of coastal areas documented in previous studies suggests that hydrocarbons could have entered the near shore foodweb. To test this hypothesis, we measured radiocarbon (∆14CY) and stable carbon isotopes (∆13C) in an assortment of fish tissue, invertebrate tissue and shell samples collected within a year of the spill at seven sites from Louisiana to Florida USA across the northern Gulf of Mexico. Samples are from July of 2010 through May 2013. This data set also contains plankton samples collected in plankton nets and water column particulates collected on a 0.7 micron filter. Sediment data from Chanton, J., Zhao, T., Rosenheim, B. E., Joye, S., Bosman, S., Brunner, C., et al. (2015). Using Natural Abundance Radiocarbon To Trace the Flux of Petrocarbon to the Seafloor Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Environ. Sci. Technol., 49(2), 847–854 are also included here.