Interesting report in New Scientist this morning, suggesting massive undersea oil-and-dispersant plumes may have rather suddenly “disappeared” — and that the rapid growth of marine hydrocarbon-gobbling bacteria may be responsible:
“We can’t find oil at the surface and, as of this week, we cannot find it deep down either,” says Terry Hazen, a microbial ecologist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, whose research has focused on the area within 100 kilometres of the wellhead.
Hazen thinks he can explain why the plumes are gone. He had previously collected water samples from inside and outside of the plumes, which he kept at 4 °C – the coldest temperature along the floor of the Gulf. Within days, he found that the microbial populations in the samples began to shift in favour of those able to break down oil. The findings tally with those of other ecologists working in the field. Hazen also found that the oil disappeared faster still in the presence of Corexit 9500A, the dispersant used by BP in the Gulf waters.
Oil-eating bacteria in the Gulf’s deeper waters may have reacted so fast thanks in part to being primed by natural oil seeps along the sea floor. All things considered, and given that oil stopped flowing two weeks ago, says Hazen, it is not surprising that the plumes are now largely gone.
Read New Scientist’s full report:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19264-gulf-oil-slick-in-disappearing-trick.html
[...] skepticism about reports that BP’s huge mixed plumes of oil and oil-dispersant chemicals have vanished from the Gulf, the ProPublica‘s Marian Wang reported [...]