How often do oil spills occur daily?

Do oil "spills" similar in magnitude to the one in the Gulf of Mexico ever occur naturally?

• For example, is it likely that some time in the last 10,000 or 20,000 years an underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption caused enough oil to spout from the earth to cause the level of environmental destruction that the current one will? Or is this the kind of destruction that only man is capable of producing?

• Answer:

  Volcanic eruption? No. Earthquake, maybe. But does it just naturally occur, all the time, and we know it? Yup. There are natural submarine oil "seeps" (and on land, you get oil sands). According to the NRC, (National Research Council) of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, "natural oil seeps contribute the highest amount of oil to the marine environment, accounting for 46 per cent of the annual load to the world's oceans." At Coal Oil Point along my beautiful California Coast near Santa Barbara. An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 gallons of crude oil is released naturally from the ocean bottom every day, just a few miles offshore from this beach (which is why we have oil rigs off of Santa Barbara). However there is still a vast difference. Natural seeps are.. natural. They happen in ecosystems/habitats/biomes that are used to the seeping oil. The current gusher is putting out thousands of barrels of crude oil into environments that have no natural defense/etc. to work and live with the petroleum. I *strongly* encourage you to at least glance over the links below. It's very valuable information.