Possible Ecological Damage From the Gulf Oil Leak?
Department:
The Global Environment
Teaser:
"When oil stopped gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the ecosystems under assault started on a long road to recovery. Amanda Mascarelli meets the researchers assessing their chances."
Source:
Scientific American Download time: Sep 2 2010 8:11 AM ET
Oil has been here. It has blasted this tiny barrier island on the southeastern edge of Louisiana, turning the entire rim of wetland vegetation yellow and the surrounding soil black. The flagging marsh grass stems are tinged dull brown, as if they've been dipped in turpentine. As for the animals living in the water below-- well, it is hard to know their story.
Kim de Mutsert, a postdoctoral coastal ecologist from Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, is here on a blistering July day to find out. The juvenile crabs, shrimp and fish she is collecting spawned tens to hundreds of kilometres away on the continental shelf in April and May--just when the Deepwater Horizon well was spilling some 10 million litres of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. Their eggs and larvae drifted for weeks offshore, bathed in oily water, before the juveniles at last took refuge in the shallow coastal estuaries, where they will mature. De Mutsert is here to discover what harm they have sustained, and what scars will be left on their offspring and on the generations to come.
By the time the Deepwater Horizon well was finally plugged on 15 July, it had spewed some 750 million liters of crude oil into the Gulf and earned the title of the biggest accidental marine oil spill ever.…
See Scientific American for links to further info.
