enforced due to the fact that an earlier oil spill had occurred in the same area: on 12 May 1976, the supertanker Urquiola scraped the bottom of the channel entrance in A Coruña, causing the ship to spill its cargo of 107,000 tons of oil. This affected sea life as well as subtidal sediments, but the surviving sea life developed defense mechanisms which allowed them to survive such a crisis. The sea life in A Coruña appeared to remain stable until the wreck of the Aegean Sea. To determine the impact of the spill on sea life, a study was conducted to determine species richness, abundance, and biomass. Scientist analyzed changes from December 1992 to November 1996, and found that the macrobenthic communities living in the coast of the affected areas displayed a similar trend as the original organisms affected by the Urquiolas oil spill. Amphipods seemed to be affected the worst by the oil spill, and experienced a high mortality rate and low abundance rate, up to the spring of 1995. Soon after, the species seemed to recover until the end of the study in 1996. Towards the end of the study, a trend was discovered in which resistant species dominated the ecosystem. A third oil spill occurred around the same area in A Coruña in November 2002, in which a tanker, Prestige, carrying 77,000 tons of oil split into two and spilled its cargo. About 10,000 tons of oil was spilled but the sunken hull of Prestige is still leaking oil from her tanks to this day. See also List of oil spills Urquiola: another oil tanker that sank off the Galician coast in 1976 MV Prestige: another oil tanker that sank off the Galician coast in 2002 References 1992 in Spain 1992 in the environment 1992 industrial disasters Man-made disasters in Spain Maritime incidents in 1992 Maritime incidents in Spain Oil spills in Spain December 1992 events in Europe History of A Coruña