Oil Spill	Date	Location	Volume
Ixtoc I, well blowout	1979-1980	Mexico	139-428
Nowruz Oil Field, well blowout	1983	Persian Gulf	80-185
Castillo de Bellver, broke/fire	1983	South Africa	50-80
Amoco Cadiz, grounding	1978	France	67-76
Aegean Captain, Atlantic Empress	1979	Tobago	49.9
D-103 Libya, well blowout	1980-1981	Libya	42.0
Atlantic Empress, fire	1979	Barbados	41.5
Torrey Canyon, grounding	1967	England	35.7-38.6
Irenes Serenade, fire	1980	Greece	12.3-36.6
Sea Star, collision/fire	1972	Gulf of Oman	35.3

Source: "Coping with an Oiled Sea: An Analysis of Oil Spill Response Technologies," U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, March 1990, page 4.

The table above shows the largest oil spills on record since 1967.  The total volume of oil is given in millions of gallons.

Most of the oil spills occurred in the late 1970s or early 1980s.  Fewer are happening now, though major oil spills do certainly still occur.

When the Exxon Valdez oil spill happened, many people were shocked and horrified.  But the ship spilt 10.8 million gallons, almost nothing compared with as many as 428 million gallons for the Ixtoc I in Mexico and other less-known spills.

That shows that not all major oil spills receive great publicity, and media coverage is hardly proportional to the total amount of damage done.