Researchers Discover Thick Layers Of Oil On Ocean Floor

by Miles Wolf Tamboli - The Talk Radio News Service

University of Georgia professor Dr. Samantha Joye, who is conducting research on the ocean vessel Oceanus to determine impacts of the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil spill, wrote in her blog recently that she and her colleagues have encountered thick layers of oil on the seabed between the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the Louisiana coast.

Federal reports on the fate of oil leaked from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead have asserted that the majority of the leaked oil has dissipated naturally. There is evidence in Dr. Joye’s research that shows the reports could be inaccurate, but the researcher declined to report that the oil found can be directly attributed to the BP spill until further testing has been conducted.

There is a consensus among researchers that oil does seep from the ocean floor naturally, but Joye describes that the composition of the oil on top of the soil is from a different source.

“At the site we visited today, the oil obviously came from the top (down from the water column) not the bottom (up from a deep reservoir),” said Joye. “What we found today is not a natural seep.”

In addition to the massive amounts of oil found at a number of sites, remains were discovered of shrimp, worms, zooplankton, and other invertebrates that were determined to have been recently killed. In addition, “the normal invertebrate fauna you’d expect to see in these sediments are not [present].”

Researchers debate the long-term ecological effects of the oil spill and of the methods used to contain it, including the release of large amounts of chemical dispersants into the Gulf, and many wonder about the hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil unaccounted for in federal reports on the oil’s fate.