For decades, two main facets of underwater oil spills have been explored extensively—the rise of oil drops and resulting evolution of the oil slick at the air-water interface. We report on the bursting of rising oil drops at an air–liquid interface which precedes slick formation and reveal a counterintuitive bulge reversal that releases a daughter oil droplet inside the bulk as opposed to upward-shooting jets observed in bursting air bubbles. By unraveling the underlying physics we show that daughter droplet size and bulk liquid properties are correlated and their formation can be suppressed by an increase in the bulk viscosity.

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• Bubble dynamics
• Drop breakup
• Drop coalescence
• Drop interactions
• Drop or bubble formation
• Drops & bubbles