“Christopher Reddy, a co-author of the study released Thursday by the journal Science, says it was a big surprise when scientists first reported that large amounts of oil and oil compounds were staying underwater rather than rising to the surface.”
The findings reported in Science matches other reports of “vaseline-like” blobs (see previous post).
The University of South Florida’s College of Marine Sciences keeps reporting running into opposition from unexpected parties in its attempts to investigate the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
It had previously mentioned encountering difficulties in obtaining samples. (See USF scientists: BP not helpful in researching oil layers in the Tampa Tribune on June 8, and USF professor: BP’s resistance is ‘unsettling’, WRBL on June 9.)
An article published in the St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday, August 10 states that NOAA and the Coast Guard told the department to shut up about its research findings. Apparently, it’s not the only local university with that kind of experience either, as an oceanographer at the University of Southern Mississippi received the same treatment.
The article is available online at: http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/usf-says-government-tried-to-squelch-their-oil-plume-findings/1114225.
Yet today, the same paper reports that the dean of USF’s College of Marine Sciences now classifies it as “old news” in a letter to the editor.
USF’s College of Marine Sciences is based in St. Petersburg whereas the main campus is in Tampa. Today, August 12, is also when the decisions about new oil spills research projects are made, at the same location. Ten million dollars provided by BP will finance the selected projects.
On May 17, I blogged on the oxygen depletion (30%) apparently seen near some of the gushers at the time and on what Samantha Joye, marine science professor at the University of Georgia, had to say about that.
On August 1, Samantha Joye wrote on her blog:
She added:
In other media, scientists voice similar views. Pamela Hallock Muller, also of USF’s College of Marine Science, comments:
Anna Armitage, a professor at Texas A&M University, says:
“Consumers Not Buying Seafood’s Clean Bill Of Health” said a tweet that caught my eye this morning.
The issue is important enough to post the link to the item on NPR here:
“Certain areas of the Gulf of Mexico have been given permission to resume commercial fishing. Consumers, however, are still leery about eating seafood from the Gulf since all the oil hasn’t been cleaned up yet.”
The item’s audio will be available at about 9am Eastern Time (Miami, New York, Boston), which is 3pm Central European Time (Amsterdam, Paris, Cologne, Madrid).
I just ran into this bit of research that is dated (2000), but still pretty cool. If you do a lot of lab work, you’ll be interested.
(more…)
Yesterday, I spotted a research photograph of tuna eggs accredited to “huevos” – which is Spanish for eggs! It was Spanish research, yes.
Ensalada mixta!
“The European Commission is currently funding projects aimed at developing new technologies to mitigate the effects of pollution in our seas and oceans. The Argomarine project (Automatic oil spill recognition and geopositioning integrated in a marine monitoring network) is one example.”
For more, read the full article.
“Don’t leave. It’ll be worth the wait.” That’s what Craig Venter said when he briefly popped out of the Sheldonian Lecture Theatre in Oxford on October 25, 2007. It turned out he was right.
A tweet alerted me to this article in The Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7127904.ece
Its headline is outdated; the flow rate may well be in the area of 60,000 barrels per day, BP told Dutch daily NRC as reported on May 6:
http://www.nrc.nl/economie/article2538809.ece/Olieramp_mogelijk_groter_dan_eerder_aangenomen
US Secretary Salazar had previously stated he expected 100,000 barrels per day to go into the Gulf for about three months, also as reported by Dutch daily NRC, on May 2:
http://www.nrc.nl/buitenland/article2536830.ece/Obama_alles_doen_om_olielek_te_bestrijden
Much more interesting is the oxygen depletion (30%) apparently seen near some of the gushers and what Samantha Joye, marine science professor at the University of Georgia has to say about that. I’ll take her word for it.
The Gulf Stream may become even more important to the Gulf, then, and modelers – physical oceanographers – would surely be scrunching a lot of numbers related to that.
I wish I could say more about it, but I am not an expert on what can happen when you release such huge amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and I don’t have the time to dive into it right now (but am, obviously, interested).
Something similar – a blowout with a large spill into the Gulf of Mexico – happened before, however, in the 1970s and apparently, the ecological impact was minimal at the time.
PS
Orcutt, B.N., S. B. Joye, S. Kleindienst, K. Knittel, A. Ramette, A. Reitz, V. A. Samarkin, T. Truede, and A. Boetius, 2009. Impact of natural oil and higher hydrocarbons on microbial diversity, distribution and activity in Gulf of Mexico cold seep sediments. Deep Sea Research, in press.
New TED talk by (reef) ecologist Jeremy Jackson for those who are interested:
How we wrecked the ocean.
Here: http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/
Also has phone numbers to call, social media channels etc.
By: NOAA, BP, Transocean, US Department of Homeland Security.