Scientist finds Gulf bottom still oily, dead

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: AP

Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a scientist's video and slides that demonstrate the oil isn't degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor.

At a science conference in Washington, marine scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia aired early results of her December submarine dives around the BP spill site. She went to places she had visited in the summer and expected the oil and residue from oil-munching microbes would be gone by then. It wasn't.

"There's some sort of a bottleneck we have yet to identify for why this stuff doesn't seem to be degrading," Joye told the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington. Her research and those of her colleagues contrasts with other studies that show a more optimistic outlook about the health of the gulf, saying microbes did great work munching the oil.

"Magic microbes consumed maybe 10 percent of the total discharge, the rest of it we don't know," Joye said, later adding: "there's a lot of it out there."



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsv8vJ45hWNxvco5tgcPE_iHt6dQ?docId=b0876e788169473cb4fbe2d7ff275ffb

[niyad]

1. and does this surprise any of us?

[boppers]

6. Some people thought it would degrade quicker, some thought it would be slower.

If you check archives, I'm sure you can find examples of both.

[cantbeserious]

2. Best Not To Eat Any Seafood For A Decade Or More

eom

[Fuddnik]

5. About a monthago, I had a choice while shopping.

Gulf grouper or Chinese tilapia. I never thought I'd turn down grouper.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. I've heard that tilapia is a trash fish. Bottom feeding, like catfish.

I won't eat those.

[somone]

3. "microbes consumed maybe 10 percent"

So we were fed a bunch of lies.

[BeFree]

4. Emulsified

Means instead of being separate and apart, the oil has become one with the water.

The water is quite cold, I imagine, since it is at some depth. But it may surface at some point, or rather, at many thousands, even millions of points?

[midnight]

8. We need people who know what they are doing to get to work, and get BP the hell out of the way...

[defendandprotect]

9. BP -- killer capitalism ... !!! Destroying the planet, one ocean at a time!!