Method for detecting hydrocarbon deposits

A method for detecting and locating a hydrocarbon deposit under a body of water, the method comprising:

• acquiring images of a surface of the body of water taken at different times;
• for each image:
• identifying traces of hydrocarbon leaks in the image;
• generating a detection map indicative of probabilities of the presence of a hydrocarbon source around the identified traces of hydrocarbon leaks, by processing the image at least based on a criterion of distance to the identified traces of hydrocarbon leaks;
• combining the detection maps generated to produce a hydrocarbon deposit leak source location map, and
• wherein the processing of each image on the basis at least of a criterion of distance to the identified hydrocarbon traces comprises assigning to each point i of the image a value computed on the basis of the distance of the point i to the trace of the identified hydrocarbon leak closest to the point i, and the value assigned to a point i of the image is proportional to exp[˜min d12/(2σ2)], where min di2 denotes a minimum distance squared of the point i to a trace of a closest hydrocarbon leak, and σ2 represents a representative variance of a zone of influence of the trace of the hydrocarbon leak.