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"We got real close to where you're going to kill things. But probably nothing will drop dead," said Ken Hinga, assistant dean of the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography.

Oil conditions offshore in the waters of Block Island Sound, where thousands of lobsters died last week, are still unclear.

Scientists are awaiting results from a large-scale series of water samples collected from the sound last week by the staff of the Albatross, a research vessel operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Kenneth Sherman, director of NOAA's marine laboratory in Narragansett, said last night that he hopes to get the results of the water analyses soon. When scientists learn the concentrations of oil that mixed with the water they should be able to readily assess the possible effects on marine life.

Sherman said there was good news in a report on the fish collected by the Albatross as it dragged a net near the grounded North Cape oil barge.

"The species we expected to be present at this time of year were found," said Sherman. "Skate, silver hake [whiting], herring, winter flounder are the major species. We compared the numbers to [past studies] and they seem to be in line with average conditions. We saw no evidence of mass mortality of finfish."

(At the State House yesterday, a URI marine biologist, Joseph DeAngelis, told a General Assembly commission drafting aquaculture legislation that, based on checks he and other URI researchers made, little of the oil spilled by the North Cape remains in the sound.)

The Albatross was expected to return today from its home port in Woods Hole, Mass., and begin an intensive four-day survey through all of the waters in Block Island Sound now closed to fishing because of the spill.

It will collect samples of water, fish and sediments at 20 locations. Most of the locations have been sampled regularly by NOAA during several decades of monitoring coastal waters, so there will be plenty of historical data to compare with what's out there this week.

"We felt it was important to revisit the area now that the barge is out so we could work with the state and the Environmental Protection Agency and provide the samples that can then be the basis for hopefully opening up the fisheries area as soon as possible," Sherman said.

"Based on previous spills of this kind in other parts of the world, we all realize Number 2 oil has a limited residence time in the water column. But we are all focusing on the damage that did take place."

Eliot Hurwitz, a NOAA public-affairs officer, said yesterday that NOAA scientists were still debating what "protocol," or set of rules, to follow in analyzing fish so that the state can decide when it's safe to reopen the fishery.

"There were concerns about how to go about it, and to preserve the train of evidence," said Hurwitz. He said he was certain a protocol would be agreed to "in a matter of hours."

The EPA also is expected to do more sampling in the ponds and offshore this week, as well.

URI's Hinga said that as a rule of thumb, biologists expect deaths when the levels of oil reach about 1 part per million.

In Potter Pond the levels were about only one-fifth that critical concentration, Hinga said.

A sample from Card Ponds came in at 0.44 ppm, and at Trustom Pond it was 0.69 ppm.

Tests of Green Hill, Ninigret and Quonochontaug showed no detectable levels of oil.

"This was a close one," Hinga said of the spill. "Probably there are subtle long-term effects. But there also are natural variabilities in the life out there, and trying to determine how it was affected by a toxin that was present for only a few days is going to be very difficult."