Edward B. Overton

Position: Emeritus Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences

Office: 1265 Energy, Coast & Environment Building

Phone: 225-578-8634

Fax: 225-578-4286

Bachelor's Degree(s): B.S., University of Alabama, 1965

Ph.D.(s): Ph.D., University of Alabama, 1970

Research Interests

Dr. Overton’s research interests include understanding the fates and distributions of hydrocarbons following an oil spill, the environmental chemistry of hazardous chemicals, and the detection of environmental pollutants at the site of sample collection. He has been active in understanding the fate and effects of petroleum hydrocarbons in marine environments from oil spills since the 1978 Well blowout at the US DOE Strategic Petroleum Reserve West Hackberry Site, flowed by the Amoco Cadiz Tanker wreck and the IXTOC 1 blowout in 1979, the Exxon Valdez wreck in 1989, and currently the Deepwater Horizon fire and blowout in 2010. Dr Overton has given hundreds of live interviews concerning the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to international print, radio, and TV media sources including an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman as well as all major US TV network and cable news shows. He has also been an invited speaker at dozens of national and international scientific meetings and seminars on topics associated with the Oil Spill.

Dr. Overton held the Clairborne Chair in Environmental Toxicology and Air Quality prior to his retirement and was honored as an LSU Distinguished Faculty in 2008, was the 1996 Louisiana Technologist of the Year and the 2010 Louisiana Communicator of the Year. In 2016, he was given a Stewardship Award from the Coalition to Save Coastal Louisiana.

Publications since 2000

F. Munari, A. Cadoppi, E. Overton, N Roques, and K. Carney, “Fast Analysis of VOC and SVOC with a Portable Micro GC” Preceeding of the 23rd International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography, Riva del Garda Italy, June 2000

Ashton, B.M., R.S. East, M.M. Walsh, M.S. Miles and E.B. Overton. 2000. Studying and Verifying the Use of Chemical Biomarkers for Identifying and Quantitating Oil Residues in the Environment. US Dept. of Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA OCS Study, MMS 2000-080

Edward B. Overton, Kenneth R. Carney, Ned Roques, and H. P. Dharmasena, “Fast GC Instrumentation and Analysis for Field Applications”, Field Analytical Chemistry and Technology 5(1-2):97-105, 2001

Gary A. Eiceman, Jorge Gardea-Torresdey, Ed Overton, Kenneth Carney, and Frank Dorman, “2002 Fundamental Reviews: Gas Chromatography”, Anal Chem 2002, 74, 2771-2780

Turner, R.E., E.B. Overton, N.N. Rabalais, and B.K. Sen Gupta (eds.). 2003. Historical Reconstruction of the Contaminant Loading and Biological Responses in the Central Gulf of Mexico,” Chapter 2 Organic Analysis, Overton, E.B., Miles, M.S., Ashton, B.M., US Dept. of Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA OCS Study, MMS 2003-0

Gary A. Eiceman, Jorge Gardea-Torresdey, Ed Overton, Kenneth Carney, and Frank Dorman, “2004 Fundamental Reviews: Gas Chromatography”, Anal Chem, 2004, 76, 3387-3394

E. B. Overton, B.M Ashton and M.S. Miles, “Historical polycyclic and petroleum hydrocarbon loading in the Northern Central Gulf of Mexico shelf sediments”, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 49 (2004) 557-563

Abhinav Bhushan, Dawit Yemane, Praveen Pasupuleti, Edward B. Overton, Jost Goettert, and Michael C. Murphy, “Fabrication and Testing of High Aspect Ratio Metal Micro-Gas Chromatograph Columns”, Proc. of the ASME IMECE 2004, 2004 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Expo, November 13-19, 2004 Anaheim, CA

A. Bhushan, V. Challa, J. McKeon, D. Yemane, E. B. Overton, M. C. Murphy, J. Goettert, "Application of Scanning Acoustic Microscopy in Characterizing

Metal Micro Gas Chromatograph Columns", TMS Letters, 1 (7) (2004), pp.145-146

G. A. Eiceman, J. G. Torresdey, F. Dorman, E. Overton, A. Bhushan, and H. P. Dharmasena (2006) "Gas Chromatography", Anal. Chem, v 78, n 12, pp 3985 - 3996

A. Bhushan, D. Yemane, D. Trudell, E. B. Overton, and J. Goettert, "Fabrication of micro-gas chromatograph columns for fast chromatography", Microsystem Technologies v 13, n 2, pp 383-393, 2007

A Bhushan, D. Yemane, E. B. Overton, J. Goettert, and M. C. Murphy, “Fabrication and Preliminary Results for LiGA Fabricated Nickel Micro Gas Chromatograph Columns”, J. Microelectromech. Syst, Vol. 16, NO.2, p383-393, April 2007

Chetan Ramesh, Abhinav Bhushan, Edward Overton, Michale C Murphy, “Design and Fabrication of fast micro heaters for temperature programming micro gas chromatographs” Proceedings of the ASME IMECE 2007 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Expo November 11-15, 2007, Seattle, WA

Javed Iqbal, Edward B. Overton, and David Gisclair, “Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Louisiana Rivers and Coastal Environments: Source Fingerprinting and ForensicAnalysis”, Environmental Forensics, 9:63-74, 2008

Javed Iqbal, Edward B. Overton and David Gisclair, “PAH Sources in Louisiana Rivers and Coastal Environments: Principal Component Analysis”, Environmental Forensics, Vol. 9:310-319, 2008.

Frank L. Dorman, Edward B. Overton, Joshua J. Whiting, Jack W. Cochran, and Jorge Gardea-Torresdey, “Gas Chromatography” Anal. Chem. 2008, 80, 4487-4497

Abhinav Bhushan, Dawit Yemane, Scott McDaniel, Jost Goettert, Michael Murphy and Edward B. Overton, “Hybrid integration of injector and detector functions for microchip gas chromatography”, Analyst, 2010 135. 2730-2736

Irv A. Mendelssohn, G. L. Anderson, D. A. Baltz, R. H. Caffey, K. R. Carmin, J. W. Fleeger, S. B. Joye, Q. Lin, E. Maltby, E. B. Overton, and L. P. Razos, ‘Oil Impacts on Coastal Wetlands: Implications for the Mississippi River Delta Ecosystem after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill”, BioScience, June 2012 / Vol 62 No.6

Heng Gao, Martin S. Miles, Buffy M. Meyer, Roberto L. Wong and Edward B. Overton, “Assessment of cyclodextrin-enhanced extraction of crude oil from contaminated porous media”, J. Environ. Monit., 2012, 14, 216

R.H. Carmichael, A. L. Jones, H. K. Parker, W. C Walton, A. Perez-Huerta, and E. B. Overton, “The contribution of oil-derived carbon and nitrogen to the diet of oysters due to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill” Environ Sci and Tech, 2012 46(23):12787-95

Jeffrey Wickliffe, Edward Overton, Scott Frickel, Jessi Howard, Mark Wilson, Bridget Simon, Stephen Echsner, Daniel Nguyen, David Gauthe, Diane Blake, Charles Miller, Cornelis Elferink, Shakeel Ansari, Harshica Fernando, Edward Trapido, and Andrew Kane, Evaluation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Using Analytical Methods, Toxicology, and Rish Assessment Research: Seafood Safety after a Petroleum Spill as an Example, Environ Health Perspect; 2014, Vol 122, Number 1; DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1306724

M. J. Wilson, J. K. Wickliffe and E. B. Overton, “A critique of the manuscript: "Distribution and concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons associated with the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Gulf of Mexico", Mar Pollut Bull. 2014, Feb 15;79 (1-2)

Edward B. Overton, M. Scott Miles, Buffy M Meyer, Heng Gao, and R. Eugene Turner (2014) Oil Source Fingerprinting in Heavily Weathered Residues and Coastal Marsh Samples. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 2074-2082.

Buffy M. Meyer, Edward B. Overton, and R. Eugene Turner (2014) Oil Source Identification Using Diagnostic Biomarker Ratio Analyses. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings: May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 2064-2073.

Hooper-Bui, LM, Rabalais NN, Engel AS, Turner RE, McClenachan G, Roberts B, Overton EB, Justic D, Strudivant K, Brown K, Conover J. 2014. Overview of Research into the Coastal Effects of the Macondo Blowout from the Coastal Waters Consortium: GoMRI Consortium. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings, May 2014, Vol. 2014, No. 1, pp. 604-617

M.L.Parsons, R.E.Turner, E.B.Overton , Sediment-preserved diatom assemblages can distinguish a petroleum activity signal separately from the nutrient signal of the Mississippi River in coastal Louisiana, Marine Pollut Bull 85 (2014) 164–171

Turner, R.E., E.B. Overton, B.M. Meyer, M.S. Miles, G. McClenachan, L. Hooper-Bui, A. Summer Engel, E.M. Swenson, J.M. Lee, C.S. Milan, and H. Gao 2014. Distribution and recovery trajectory of Macondo (Mississippi Canyon 252) oil in Louisiana salt marshes. Marine Pollut Bull, 87 (2014) 57-67

Turner, R.E., E. B. Overton, B.M. Meyer, M.S. Miles, and L. Hooper-Bui 2014. Changes in the concentration and relative abundance of alkanes and PAHs from the Deepwater Horizon oiling of coastal marshes, Marine Pollut Bull, 86,(2014) 291-297

Elijah Ramsey III, Buffy M. Meyer, Amina Rangoonwala, Edward Overton, Cathleen E. Jones, and Terri Bannister, Oil source-fingerprinting in support of polarimetric radar mapping of Macondo-252 oil in Gulf Coast marshes, Marine Pollut Bull, 89 (2014) 85095

Christopher Clayton Stevens, 1Louis J. Thibodeaux, Edward B. Overton, Kalliat T. Valsaraj, Krishnaswamy Nandakumar, Abhijit Rao, and Nan D. Walker, Sea Surface Oil Slick Light Component Vaporization and Heavy Residue Sinking: Binary Mixture Theory and Experimental Proof of Concept, Environmental Engineering Science, DOI: 10.1089/ees.2015.0022

Adhikari, P. L., Maiti, K., Overton, E. (2015) Vertical fluxes of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Marine Chemistry, 168, 60-68

Melvin, A.T. , Thibodeaux, L.J. Parson, A.R., Overton, E.B., Valsaraj, K.T.and K. Nandakuma, Oil-material fractionation in Gulf deep water horizontal intrusion layer: Field data analysis with chemodynamic fate model for Macondo 252 oil spill, Marine Pollution Bulletin 105 (2016) 110–119.

Eirico J. D’Sa, Edward B. Overton, Steven E. Lohrenz, Kanchan Maiti, R. Eugene Turner and Angelina Freeman,(2016) Changing Dynamics of Dissolved organic Matter Flourescence in the Northern Gulf of mexico Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Environ Sci Technol. 50, 10, 4940–4950

Overton, E.B., T.L. Wade, J.R. Radović, B.M. Meyer, M.S. Miles, and S.R. Larter. 2016. Chemical composition of Macondo and other crude oils and compositional alterations during oil spills. Oceanography 29(3):50–63, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2016.62.

Tarr, M.A., P. Zito, E.B. Overton, G.M. Olson, P.L. Adhikari, and C.M. Reddy. 2016. Weathering of oil spilled in the marine environment. Oceanography 29(3):126–135, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2016.77.

Olson, G.M., Gao, H., Meyer, B.M., Miles, M.S., Overton, E.B., Effects of Corexit 9500A on Mississippi Canyon crude oil weathering patterns using artificial and natural seawater, Heliyon Volume 3, issue 3, March 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2017.e00269

Stevens, C., Thibodeaux, L.J., Overton, E.B., Valsaraji, K.T., Walker, N.D., Oil Droplet Dissolution and Heavy Residue Sinking of Subsurface Oil Droplets: Binary Component Mixture Dissolution Theory and Model-Oil Experiments, J Environ Engineering, accepte

Adhikari, P.L., Wong, R.L. and Overton, E.B., 2017. Application of enhanced gas chromatography/triple quadrupole mass spectrometry for monitoring petroleum weathering and forensic source fingerprinting in samples impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Chemosphere 184, 939-950.

Engel, A. S., Liu, C., Paterson, A. T., Anderson, L. C., Turner, R. E., & Overton, E. B. (2017). Salt marsh bacterial communities before and after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, October, Volume 83 Issue 20 e00784-17 doi:10.1128/AEM.00784-17

Meyer, B.M., Adhikari, P.L., Olson, G.M., Miles, M.S., and Overton, E.B. 2018. Louisiana coastal marsh environments and MC252 oil biomarker chemistry. In: Oil Spill Environmental Forensics Case Studies, Z. Wang and S.A. Stout, Eds. Boston, MA: Elsevier.

Tatariw, C., Flournoy, N., Kleinhuizen, A.A., Tollette, D., Overton, E.B., Sobecky, P., Mortazavi, B., Salt marsh denitrification is impacted by oiling intensity six years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Environmental Pollution (2018), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.envpol.2018.09.034

Alqassim AY, Wilson MJ, Wickliffe JK, Pangeni D, Overton EB, Miller III CA. Aryl hydrocarbon receptor signaling, toxicity, and gene expression responses to mono-methylchrysenes. Environmental Toxicology. 2019;1–9. https://doi.org/10.1002/tox.22770

Turner RE, Rabalais NN, Overton EB, Meyer BM, McClenachan G, Swenson EM, Benson M, Parsons ML, and Zingre J, Oiling of the continental shelf and coastal marshes over eight years after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Environmental Pollution 252 (2019) 1367-1376

Overton, E.B., Wetzel, D.L., Wickliffe, J.K., Adhikari, P.L., 2020, Chapter 3: Spilled Oil Composition and the Natural Carbon Cycle: The True Drivers of Environmental Fate and Effects of Oil Spills, © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 33, in S. A. Murawski et al. (eds.), Scenarios and Responses to Future Deep Oil Spills, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12963-7_3

Bryant, W.L., R. Camilli, G.B. Fisher, E.B. Overton, C.M. Reddy, D. Reible, R.F. Swarthout, and D.L. Valentine (2020), Harnessing a decade of data to inform future decisions: Insights into the ongoing hydrocarbon release at Taylor Energy's Mississippi Canyon 20 site, Marine Pollution Bulletin, accepted 3/4/20

Ward, C. P., and E. B. Overton (2020), How the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill reshaped our understanding of crude oil photochemical weathering at sea: A past, present, and future perspective, Environ. Sci. Processes Impacts, March 2020 https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EM00027B,

Ward, C. P., C. M. Reddy, and E. B. Overton (2020), Why sunlight matters for marine oil spills, Eos, 101,https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EO143427. 28 April 2020.

Liu YZ, Miller CA, Zhuang Y, Mukhopadhyay SS, Saito S, Overton EB, and Morris GF, (2020) The Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill upon Lung Health—Mouse Model-Based, RNA-Seq Analyses, Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 5466

Passow, U and Overton E.B., (2021) The Complexity of Spills: The Fate of the Deepwater Horizon oil, Annal Review Marine Science, Annu. Rev.Mar. Sci. 2021. 13:109–36

Overton, E, Buffy Meyer, Scott Miles, Gene Turner, and Puspa Adhikari, (2021), Understanding the Fates and Chemical Compositions of Weathered Oil in Coastal Marshes since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Proceeding of the International Oil Spill Conference, New Orleans La, May 10 -14, 20121

Overton, E, Deepa Pangeni, Mark Wilson, Jeffrey Wickliffe, and Charles Miller, (2021), Fractionation, chemical analysis, and in vitro testing identify bioactive components in MC252 crude oil, Proceeding of the International Oil Spill Conference, New Orleans La, May 10 -14, 2021

Ward, C.P., and Edward Overton, (2021), Synthesis of photochemical transformations of oil in the sea, Proceeding of the International Oil Spill Conference, New Orleans La, May 10 -14, 2021

Walker, A.H., Michael Sams, Edward Overton, and Emily Hein, (2021), Advancing Oil Spill and Dispersant Planning: Improved Regional Collaborations with Academia, Proceeding of the International Oil Spill Conference, New Orleans La, May 10 -14, 2021

Farrington, J.W., Overton, E.B., and Passow, U., (2021), Biogeochemical Processes Affecting the Fate of Discharged Deepwater Horizon Gas and Oil, Oceanography, Vol 24. No. 1

Justic, D., et al, (2021), Transport processes in the Gulf of Mexico along the river-estuary-shelf-ocean continuum: a review of research from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, accepted for publication in Estuaries and Coasts

Adhikari, P.L., Overton, E.B., Pangeni, D., Regmi, B.P., (2021), Application of individual response factors for accurate quantitation of alkylated PAH homologs in complex environmental samples using gas chromatography/triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS), Microchemical Journal (2021), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.microc.2021.107074

Overton, E.B., Adhikari, P.L., Radovic, J.R., and Passow, U., (2022), Fates of Petroleum During the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: A Chemistry Perspective, Front. Mar. Sci. 9:928576. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2022.928576

Tatariw, C., Flournoy, N.Y., Kleinhuizen, A.A., Crawford, P., Overton, E.B., Sobecky, P.A., Mortazavi, B., (2022), Enhanced susceptibility to oiling may limit denitrification recovery in marshes subjected to woody encroachment, Frontiers in Environmental Sciences, Front. Environ. Sci. 10:951365. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2022.951365

Seunghyeon Yang, Jeffrey Wickliffe, Gottfried Kibelka, Edward B. Overton, Claudiu T. Lungu and Jonghwa Oh, (2023), Laboratory evaluation of a prototype portable gas chromatograph (GC) with a flame ionization detector (FID) for toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (TEX) analysis, Journal of Analytical Science and Technology (2023) 14:36 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40543-023-00404-2

Radovic, Jagos R, Puspa L Adhikari, and Edward B Overton, Chapter X. Fates of Petroleum Compounds from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Fingas, M. (Ed.). (2024). Oil Spill Science and Technology, 3rd Edition. Elsevier. (Forthcoming, November 1, 2024). Available at: https://shop.elsevier.com/books/oil-spill-science-and-technology/fingas/978-0-443-21703-6