>>22 Mile Undersea Oil Plume Could Poison Marine Foodchain:
Scientists fear these oil clouds will create giant dead zones in the Gulf by suffocating large marine life and poisoning tiny creatures at the bottom of the food chain.
The plumes could poison and suffocate all kinds of sea life for up to a decade...
"The plume reaching waters on the continental shelf could have toxic effects on fish larvae, and we may also see a long term response as it cascades up the food web..."
SARASOTA COUNTY - Suncoast scientists now fear the oil spill is spreading deep underneath the surface, after University of South Florida researchers conducted experiments in an unexplored region of the BP oil spill.
They say initial tests show oil and chemical dispersant as far as two miles from the surface. The scientists say if they are right, that means oil and chemicals will be able to get past any booms or defenses we set up on the surface.
They say the deep water samples they were pulling up look clear to the naked eye, but their first tests show high concentrations of dissolved hydrocarbons, and can be a very big threat to the ecosystem. "We were not terribly surprised because weathered oil is known to sink," says Ernst Peebles of USF College of Marine Science.
Three research teams spent two weeks collecting water samples 24 miles west from the BP rig and south of Mobile, Alabama. Beneath the surface, two-miles deep, they say they found traces of oil. "So if anyone is envisioning some large plume of black oil, that didn't exist as far as we can tell. However, they had suspicious chemical signatures and sometimes particular matter in them."
A glider picked up a reflective sheen in the water, which could be remnants of oil. "Sensors in the gliders were not specifically designed to collect oil, but they are capable in testing of signature of oil presence," says project engineer Chad Lempke.
And he says sonar confirms its existence. Additional tests will be done now on 130 water samples and marine life not killed by oil. "A diversity of fish and crustaceans from about 450 meters deep."
And if they are proved right and oil is miles beneath the surface, Peebles says there is no science that will get rid of it. "The best clean up measure in my opinion is to let bacteria consume it. It's happened in the past and it could happen now."
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FRIDAY, MAY 28, 2010
BP: (NYSE:BP) 22 Mile Long Oil Plume Heading To Florida
Off the BP (NYSE:BP) work site, a 22 mile long and 6 mile wide oil plume has been discovered by the University of South Florida college of Marine Sciences researchers. They say it is preparing to enter a underwater canyon. The effects of this would be devastating.
This massive plume is dangerously close to entering a large underwater canyon, once the crude oil enters this canyon the plants and animals that feed larger organisms will be bathed in a toxic chemical and oil soup. This canyon is responsible for fueling the food chain off the Gulf in Florida.
David Hollander, associate professor of chemical oceanography said, "the plume was detected just beneath the surface down to about 3,300 feet." He said their team found the thickest amounts of hydrocarbons at around 1,300 feet below in the same spot on two separate days this week.
Further testing by the researchers is planned to determine if the hydrocarbons they discovered are from the emulsification of oil or results of dispersants used as they made their way from the well into the sea.
Second Massive Oil Plume Found; Scientists Fear for Gulf Marine Life
By SABRINA CANFIELD
NEW ORLEANS (CN) - Marine scientists have found another giant plume deep beneath the Gulf's surface believed to be oil and stretching 22 miles northeast from BP's gushing wellhead. The thick mass is headed toward an underwater canyon whose currents feed marine life in the waters off Florida. Scientists fear these oil clouds will create giant dead zones in the Gulf by suffocating large marine life and poisoning tiny creatures at the bottom of the food chain.
The discovery was made Thursday by researchers on the University of South Florida College of Marine Science's Weatherbird II vessel. It is the second significant plume found since the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon that killed 11 and injured 17 others.
The thick plume is more than 6 miles wide, according to David Hollander, associate professor of chemical oceanography at the Florida school. It was detected by its dense concentration of hydrocarbons just beneath the water's surface down to about 3,300 feet.
Hollander's team said the thickest amount of hydrocarbons was detected at about 1,300 feet in the same spot on two separate days this week. Discovery of the plume was important, Hollander said, because it confirmed that the substance in the water was not naturally occurring and that the plume was at its highest concentration in deeper waters.
The researchers will use further testing to determine whether the hydrocarbons they found are the result of dispersants or a natural coagulation of the oil as it traveled away from the well.
Many scientists worry these plumes are the result of unprecedented use of chemical dispersants to break up the oil a mile undersea at the site of the leak.
Oil companies such as BP use chemical dispersants to break up oil, but dispersant use has never been as significant as the more than 600,000 gallons of chemicals BP has far dumped on the millions of gallons of crude oil that have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. Hollander told the San Francisco Chronicle that there are two elements to the plume. "The plume reaching waters on the continental shelf could have toxic effects on fish larvae, and we may also see a long term response as it cascades up the food web," he said.
The first plume found by researchers May 16 was traveling from the well southwest into the open sea. It launched concerns that deepwater marine life would suffocate, but this new mass is headed into shallower waters inland, where many fish and other species reproduce.
Hollander said the oil they detected has dissolved into the water and is no longer visible, causing fears among researchers that the toxicity from the oil and dispersants could pose a monumental threat to fish larvae and creatures that filter the water for food.
The mass was nearing a large underwater canyon whose currents are crucial to the food chain in Gulf waters off Florida, and could harm the tiny plants and animals that feed larger organisms by inundating them with the toxic chemicals, another researcher said.
The DeSoto Canyon off the Florida Panhandle sends nutrient-rich water from the deep sea up to shallower waters, said Larry McKinney, executive director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
In the best-case scenario, McKinney said, oil on the current would rise close enough to the surface to be broken down by sunlight. But if the plume does not break down, the mass could continue on as a toxic cloud along the west coast of Florida toward the Keys.
The plumes could poison and suffocate all kinds of sea life for up to a decade, Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia, told The Associated Press last week. The combination of oily water and oxygen depletion in the lower depths can "interrupt the food chain at the lowest level, and will trickle" up the chain, she said. Whales, dolphins and tuna could all be affected.
Richard Charter, government relations consultant for Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, told Mother Jones last week that oil companies use dispersants to sink the oil in part because they "want to make the visible part of the oil spill disappear -- for political reasons, limiting the liability to the spillers." But, Charter says, "if we were looking at food chain impacts and biomagnifications in the marine ecosystem, we probably never would have invented" them.
Federal scientists estimate that between 18 million and 28 million gallons of oil have already spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, eclipsing the 11 million gallons spilled by the Exxon Valdez off the coast of Alaska in 1989.
Researchers say a newly discovered plume of thick oil in the Gulf of Mexico is nearing an underwater canyon, where it could poison the food chain for sea life in the waters off Florida.
Researchers say a newly discovered plume of thick oil in the Gulf of Mexico is nearing an underwater canyon, where it could poison the food chain for sea life in the waters off Florida.
The discovery of the plume, more than six miles wide and 22 miles long, was reported Thursday. It's been detected just beneath the surface, extending down to about 3,300 feet.
Researchers say it's nearing a large underwater canyon whose currents fuel the food chain in Gulf waters off Florida.
The discovery by researchers on the University of South Florida College of Marine Science's Weatherbird II vessel is the second significant undersea plume reported since the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20.
The first plume stretched from the leaking oil well southwest toward the open sea. This undersea oil cloud is headed miles inland into shallower waters where many fish and other species reproduce.
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