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Stephen Lehmann / U.S. Coast Guard via Reuters, file
A Basler BT-67 aircraft releases dispersant over an oil slick from the Deepwater Horizon disaster off Louisiana on May 5.
Not all of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico simply vanished when the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig exploded and sank earlier this year. Growing evidence suggests that a good portion of it reached the ocean bottom, where it remains.
NPR science correspondent Richard Harris reported Monday about a ride he hitched to the ocean floor aboard the Alvin submersible craft with University of Georgia researcher Samantha Joye. The sea churned with seemingly healthy life as they descended. On the bottom, they struck oil.
"If you look at the camera, you can see the brown coloration," Joye told Harris. The "brown stuff," Harris said, covers coral fans "like pine trees along a dusty road." The oil also hangs over formations of frozen natural gas -- deposits that usually harbor the worms that bottom-dwelling crabs eat.
"The crabs don't look healthy," Joye said. "See all the dark spots and lesion-looking things? That's not normal."
Harris points out that it's impossible to say from a single dive how much damage the oil spill did to the Gulf's ecosystem. That's a story that researchers such as Joye will be piecing together over the coming months and years. But the finding serves as another reminder that the oil spill is having a lasting impact on the Gulf of Mexico.
The discovery of oil on the seafloor also begins to account for the 23 percent of the oil that was not recovered directly, dispersed chemically or naturally, evaporated or dissolved, burned or skimmed, according to a report released Nov. 23 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A key finding of that report, which updates controversial findings from August, "is the increase in the estimate for dispersed oil, specifically from 8 percent to 16 percent," NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco told reporters.
Some scientists and environmentalists criticized the use of chemical dispersants as potentially harmful to critters in the open ocean such as tuna and turtles.
Lubchenco added that the revised accounting for where the oil went, and for the effectiveness of the dispersants, does not take away from the seriousness of the oil spill.
"'Dilute' and 'dispersed' do not mean benign," she said. "We have been and remain concerned about the long-term impact on the Gulf and the people who rely on it for their livelihoods and enjoyment, and we remain committed to holding BP and the other responsible parties accountable for damages."
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
Leave a Comment:
Not possible. BPs CEO said that oil will all float to the surface and disperse. He could not be wrong could he?
WHAT!?!?
The government lied to us and it isn't all magically gone?
SHOCKER!!!!
Last I heard, they said very little was present in the water column - they never said it was "all gone."
I never remember anyone saying "all gone". In fact, I remember people being quite critical of the Government for being involved at all.
Seems some people have a memory problem. There's a doc for that!
Why isn't the Gov forcing BP to do this research and go in and do the clean up. Why do private scientist have to do it. Make BP pay for it all and do not let this fall off the attention of the Nation.
Absolutely.
Honestly, I'm thankful for the Scientist that are doing BP's dirty work. Obviously we can't depend on BP to do the right thing and/or be honest with the Public and Our Government about what the would find or anything else regarding the entire situation or should I say disaster... And trust me, these Scientist are not doing this for free, BP WILL PAY AND THEY BETTER PAY BIG!!!!
suck it up, process it, and sell it on the market.
Have u lost it? What u r suggesting is like trying to clean a swimming-pool floor using a thin surgical needle to suck up the gunk!
Fire will not work, dispersing it will not work, it will not evaporate, how the heck will this get all cleaned up?
Why worry about cleaning it up, when you can just blame Obama?
That is real nice blame Obama. Did you blame Bush for the war that we are in now for apparent reason?
Did you blame Bush for the mess he got us in or you gonna put that on Obama too?
How about we just push Obama to get this cleaned up. Let him know that we as Americans want our Gulf back and it is BP's responsibility to make it right.
This is much better than arguing about who did what for Dem and GOP.
This is an American problem caused by a British Company.
Hey James, I think your sarcasm detector is broken.
We have 16 million illegal aliens, give them all mops, tie a brick around their ankle and send them down too clean it up.
Send the guys on death row and sitting for life on our $$$...
If there was a ton of damage it would have been reported. The spill's negative environmental impacts were overstated.
What an ass
Yes and Santa will come and leave gifts in your stockings on Christmas Eve.
Wake up McBob - if the oceans die - we die.
McBob are you kidding? We probably won't know just how much damage was done for years. It breaks my heart when I think of the beautiful gulf. All the creatures and living things that have died or eventually will because of BP's greed and carelessness.
McBob, I live on the Florida Gulf Coast and you are ignorant.
I find it funny that you all want BP to "pay" just for the simple fact you can not remember the others companies directly involved with what happened such as Trans Ocean who owned and operated the rig, or Cameron the ones who built the blow out preventer that failed, and our beloved government inspectors that failed on numerous occasions to do their inspections time and time again.
Very interesting all you can remember is BP..... Is that all you can handle is remembering two letters?
BP as I recall has ponied up 20 billion for the Gulf disaster. Tell me how much have the others put up? Tell me how many times you have insisted by name they pay?
I'm not claiming BP innocent in any of this but I find it odd that everyone is clamouring for them to pay even more, yet I never have seen anyone in here ask of the other responsible parties to pay for as much as a napkin.
Devlin... I am sure everyone meant that those responsible should pay, not the US governmant or taxpayers. That would include BP and all the players... So what if BP paid out 20billion..? If it costs more to dela with ti, they should pay it. Despite this "disaster" bp still managed some hefty profits so don't start in with any story about how this hurts them...
hey mcbob the environmental impact were understated and it is bieng kept quiet i know i work the oil spill clean up and plenty of oil washes up everyday on the islands in the MS sound as for a ton of damage no thats not true its tons of damage and BP is about to shut down all operations not a good thing to do
you know devlin is correct there are others responsible but the manufacture of the blow out preventer should not be one the blow out was not designed for this app. and yes the others should ponie up as well that coming from some one on the MS gulf coast who is affected by this and not getting anything from BP or the others involved 20 Billion and thats from BP wheres the money from the others
Whats everyone trippin' about? Its just the ocean...
McBob, please tell me you're joking, or are there really people out there as dumb as you?
Out of sight, out of mind, until that next seafood order at the diner.
you order seafood at a diner ??
In September, NOAA (Govt.) scientists claimed that most of the oil had disappeared. They said that the oil eating bacteria ate away all (most) of the oil and that there was no diminished oxygen levels in the ocean.
According to NOAA (govt.) scientists in September, it was almost as if the oil spill never happened.
We already know that the govt is in cahoots with the big business. Now this only provides the proof of the same. This investigation is being done by independent (???) university scientists. I hope they can provide us some truth.
I only hope Wikileaks gets it's hands on BP and govt's coverup.
yawn....
LOL. Let's all put this into perspective please. Take the Texas Stadium in Dallas, fill it completely full of sea water, then drop in a beer can full of crude oil. This was a big spill, but its incredibly tiny compared to the gulf. The gulf in itself is very small compared to even a small ocean, the gulf is a small area, and it is relatively very shallow.
Yes, but how much sea life does it contain? It is rich in ocean animals and plants! Not to mention if it kills off the animals bc they can't get good nutrient rich food, then those who rely on the gulf to make a living will be out of buisness. And then who will pay? Not BP, that's for sure. We as taxpayers will pay for those who can't make a living!
Sure, screw the earth, it's only where we live. But who cares, by the time it really affects us, we will be long gone... leave it for future generations to deal with.
Another piece of crap. How much oil is naturally seeping in to the gulf and where does it go? Exactly, the same place it all goes.
Millions of barrels a year naturally seep into the Gulf from the sea floor. But they are all spread out, and it's a collection of hundreds of small, tiny leaks. They have been leaking so long though, that colony's of tiny bacteria have set up shop around these small leaks, and eat the fresh oil as it leaks up. The two bad things about this spill was too much all at once in a confined area, and that stupid f---ing Corexit crap. Way to go BP, as if the oil wasn't toxic enough, let's pump in millions more gallons of toxic crap. :))
They really need to work on making blowout preventers more modular, and more easily and quickly disconnected, and replaced. Look how well the capping stack worked, once they finally got the old flange and bent/busted pipes out of the way. If we're ever going to have somewhat safe offshore drilling, Cameron and other manufacturer's need to go back to the drawing board do a white paper project on these BOP's and make the design about 100 times simpler. These current designs with 1000's of cobbled together parts look like something MacGuyver would have made from scraps in a junkyard.
What ever happened to the "K.I.S.S." principle when designing something that "Just has to work, no matter what"??
FYI, They just closed 4200 sq miles of waters for fishing because of tar balls found in nets. Hmmm... Wonder why the MSM is not reporting on this?
Because the media, BP, big business, and big gov't want you to think this problem will "just go away quietly".
Oh big surprise...
Given the amount recovered, that 23 percent is a big freaking number...
still only the beginning....
And how about all those hundreds & hundreds of oil rigs that are still in the gulf and have never been checked on or removed? Some have been there for 20 years! The gulf is becoming a waste land! When these oil rigs are done the companies need to have them removed!
More damage is done by removing then to just leave them.
Let's stop the guessing already. If the oil is there, can't science determine whether or not it's harming the area and if so, to what extent? Most Americans, even in the best of times, are sue minded and capable of believing their own "make believe" as effortlessly as passing wind. We need to know and understand factually before opionating probabilities.
What I find the most ludicrous about the whole thing is those "poor poor" fisherman/shrimpers/crabbers etc all bitching and moaning about the oil spill, and how the oil is going to "damage" their fish etc etc blah blah blah. ROFLMAO. What they don't realise is how totally stupid that argument sounds when what they really mean is they can't wait to get back to strip mining the gulf of all edible seafood species as rapidly as possible. Nothing is more damaging to the gulf ecosystem than the massive wholesale slaughter called "fishing". When you remove only certainn species from a food chain, the effects ripple up and down the food chain like a tsunami. I'm not making this stuff up, go google "Trophic Cascade".
Oh, but there's no limit to the amount of shrimp/crab/fish that shallow puddle called the GOM can produce right? LOL, yah thats what they said about the Atlantic Cod fishing as well, "It'll NEVER EVER run out EVER". Decades later, the Atlantic Cod still hasn't recovered, and probably never will.
As a matter of fact, the estimated quantity of large, predator fish remaining in the world (species such as Tuna, Halibut etc) are down 90% from normal levels....
um so basically the oil and the fishermen are doing the same damn thing both are killing fish soooo my question to u is why r u bitching about it? i hate eating fish but kno alot of people who like it i rather see fish being eatin then just floating on the wateror floatin up on the beaches....
Tons more fish die in the Gulf due to fishing nets per day, than in total died from the oil spill.
When they said the oil was being dispersed I figured they must be using a spray with metalic particles to make the oil sink! ... course nobody in charge from the government would check what they use!
WRONG ! ! ! !
I actually caused this...
.
You see, I went to TACO BELL just before going on a 18 hour Fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico.
.
5 BURRITOS & 3 HOURS LATER....
BLACK SPOTS ALL OVER THE GULF.
LOL... That'll teach u to eat at TacoSmell... pwned
you are an evil polluter. I would only have eaten 4 burritos
I say lets just take the CEO of both BP and Halliburton out to the gulf, make em eat oiled up seafood for breakfast, oiled shrimp for lunch and oiled crab for dinner. Then beat them with a shoe, and yell Allahu Akbar while tea-bagging them.
What a surprise... and here we all thought that 4.9 million barrels of oil had magically disappeared, and it ends up that it actually stayed in the water it was spilled into.
Apparently the Gulf is not a rug where 4.9 million barrels of oil can be swept under and forgotten, though the oil giants and politicians would prefer that.
So how much responsibility have Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama taken for their 'we gotta drill baby drill' endeavors? Answer = 0.
Forget oil! Get a tent, a down sleeping bag, dig a hole back of a log and be happy!
After reading these post I realize why we are fast becoming a third world country. Our citizens are just as dumb and illiterate, and stupid as people in Sudan. There are very serious problems with the oil injected into the gulf by B P and it is going to take a whole lot of years to get over it's effects. Our gulf is polluted by mismanagement and negligence. THESE ARE FACTS THAT NONE OF YOUR STUPID RHETORIC WILL CHANGE.
WRONG !!!!!!!! Sudan's people can't speak English. We are obviously much more smarter. Also, if crude oil , which is a natural by-product that has taken millions of years to form, was SO harmful to the ecosystem of the earth, how did the entire ecosystem come into being over millions of years while the oil bubbled away the entire time in the earth ???? The planet will survive. That's more than can probably be said for the people of Sudan ( and us, in the long run )
And that your enightened comment will change either. There's nothing that can be done to turn back the clock, so people talk. Get over yoursef.
thank you.....joke on people
@ totallyfedup2040136 so can u speak the language that sudan people speak? probably not but so i guess that makes u stupid to them just cause they cant speak our launguage dont mean they are stupid and @ ray4a sense when did this become about who was smarter than a person from sudan? we did not cause this bp and the government did. the gulf spill is important and it is not a joke and i think some people think it is but u are not the people down there who are losing money cause they cant go fishing and if they do they come back with fish the are nasty and no go to sell and i think if u think it is a joke u ned to put yourself in their shoes...
Part of the problem is they are refusing to go out and even try to fish. They are sitting back and demanding BP pay them. If you are refusing to even try then pack up and find another job and quit b*tching! They can't claim they can't catch anything and/or it's contaminated if they refuse to cast their nets.
Some that have gone out are actually making a living (gasp! could it be?). Others got use to the nanny state of a pay check for doing nothing now refuse to work. You (the fishermen refusing work) want to say the seafood is contaminated then go out, catch a boat load and PROVE IT! I trust proof not lip service.
Devlin; How in the hail do you know what those fishermen are thinking and doing? What makes you the expert on how other people think and feel? Give me some names of the ones used to the "nanny state". Until you can present evidence, what you say or claim is just one bigots opinion, so STFU.
cd08
Can you say interviews? There have been more than a couple of interviews down there with the fishermen that have on camara said they don't want to waste their time and fuel and then find out the catch was contaminated.
Here's an article from the ever liberal leaning MSNBC even :
Many Gulf fishermen reluctant to try their luck
Low seafood prices, BP paychecks keep many vessels from venturing out
Kari Huus / msnbc.com
Link to said article.....: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39067151/
Since oil floats, I guess this oil morphed into a different chemical compound, voila! It no longer floats, guess it's not oil.