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Showing Original Post only (View all)An explosion in oil-munching bacteria made fast work of BP oil spill, scientist says [View all]
Source: New Orleans Times-Picayune / Nola.com
Much of the oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010 disappeared within weeks of the capping of BPâs Macondo well on July 15, digested by a massive explosion in oil-eating microorganisms, said Terry Hazen, a professor of environmental biology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, during a Monday panel at the national conference of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans.
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Much of the oil and methane gas released by the well was originally found to be moving in a plume 3,600 feet below the surface to the southwest of the Macondo well site.
An initial scientific paper in August 2010 concluded that the tiny droplets of oil and oily material in the plume already were rapidly disappearing within a few days after the well was capped.
Further research found that there was a 10-fold increase in several types of bacteria that munch on oil molecules, Hazen said. Over time, the make-up of the different types of bacteria changed to those that were eating different toxic chemical compounds left behind when the oil was eaten by the first organisms, he said.
Read more: http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/04/an_explosion_in_oil-munching_b.html