AbstractThe gravity‐viscous spreading of crude oil on artificially prepared ice surfaces was investigated. Five different types of crudes were studied with three surface roughnesses at ‐14°C. Crude oil No. 1 was also studied at ‐8 and ‐3°C. All spreading experiments were made with an oil volume of 45 and 20 ml. Regardless of temperature, surface roughness, oil type and oil volume, all data may be correlated by: where ρ, V and μ are the density, volume and viscosity of the oil, respectively, R is the radius of the oil slick, t is time, C is a constant and g is the acceleration