In the Gulf, they attached to oil droplets as they descended. In a process that occurs throughout the world’s oceans, these particles sink through the water column, transporting large quantities of material to the sea floor. It was carried there by marine snow - clumps of plankton, fecal pellets, biominerals, and soil particles washed into the Gulf from land. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill also deposited large quantities of crude at the bottom of the deep sea. So this is a red flag for the occurrence of ongoing oil pollution in the Gulf of Mexico. They are a food source for other fish, mammals, and birds. Chronic exposures have been associated with the decline of health indices in tilefish and grouper.ĭeepwater fish that live from depths of about 650 to 3,300 feet were also affected. Increasing concentrations of hydrocarbons in liver tissues of some species, such as groupers, suggest these fish have experienced long-term exposure to oil. This includes species such as grouper, hake, and red snapper.
LAST HORIZON OIL RIG FREE
No fish in the Gulf - none - have been free of hydrocarbons, which are the chief components of petroleum. The sediment cores provide proof that the oil has settled into the seabed floor.
Researchers have spent nearly 250 days at sea, sampling over 15,000 fish and taking over 2,500 sediment cores off the US, Mexican, and Cuban coasts. The goal of the extensive study is to quantify the impacts of oil spills and prevent them in the future. Here are their two main findings, which marine scientists Steven Murawski and Sherryl Gilbert published on the Conversation yesterday. Scientists at the Center for Integrated Modeling and Analysis of the Gulf Ecosystem ( C-IMAGE) at the University of South Florida have been studying the consequences of this marine fossil-fuel disaster since 2011. And a decade later, scientists are finding oil from that spill in the livers of fish, and on the deep ocean floor. BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig spilled around 4.9 million barrels of oil after a methane explosion on April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico - the largest marine oil spill in history.
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