Reply #139: Here's a better article in Nature (07/27) - substantial disagreement about latest data

[leveymg]

Published online 27 July 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.378
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100727/full/news.2010.378.html?s=news_rss

News

Muddying the waters on Gulf oxygen data

Independent researchers claim oxygen depletion in the Gulf of Mexico is real, but a US government report advises caution.

Amanda Mascarelli

There has been a significant drop in oxygen in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon spill, according to a number of independent researchers who have gathered data there. But the second US government summary report on the movement and breakdown of subsurface oil around the spill, issued on 23 July, says the depletion is not serious and may be down to flawed data.

< . . .>

"I don't think we'll have a situation of complete anoxia in the deep water," says Andreas Teske, a microbiologist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. "The deep sea is quite well aerated, with a lot of oxygen-rich water around."

But the oxygen depletion resulting from the leak is still worrying, experts say. Samantha Joye, a biogeochemist at the University of Georgia in Athens, has found oxygen drops of 30-50% in certain areas, especially in waters some 8 kilometres and further out from the wellhead, at depths of around 1,000-1,300 metres.

David Valentine, a geomicrobiologist at the University of California in Santa Barbara, and his team found oxygen losses of 30-35% at similar depths as Joye's team. "It's a very clear chemical signal," says Valentine. < . . .>