Marangoni forces on oil droplets rising in a stratified fluid

Subsurface trapping for phenomenon rising and settling in a stratified fluid is present in various aspects of nature, including marine snow aggregates, smoke plumes in thermal inversions, and rising oil spills. Oceanographic studies on the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill (McNutt, 2012) estimated that approximately 40 percent of spilled oil was trapped beneath the ocean surface, primarily in regions with strong oceanic density gradients. We are conducting experiments on single oil droplets rising  in sharply stratified fluids. Previous studies have shown that Marangoni forces from surface tension gradients may play a role in the trapping phenomenon. This work aims to verify the role and significance of interfacial tension in a systematic study of oil droplets rising through a sharply stratified fluid at intermediate Reynolds numbers.