Researchers link undersea oil plumes to BP spill

[jpak]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-bp-oil-plumes,0,2578252.story

Through a chemical fingerprinting process, University of South Florida researchers say they have definitively linked clouds of underwater oil in the northern Gulf of Mexico to BP's runaway Deepwater Horizon well -- the first direct scientific link between the subsurface oil clouds commonly known as "plumes" and the BP oil spill, USF officials said Friday.

Until now, scientists had circumstantial evidence, but lacked that definitive scientific link.

The announcement came on the same day that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that its researchers have confirmed the existence of the subsea plumes at depths of 3,300 to 4,300 feet below the surface of the Gulf. NOAA said its detection equipment also implicated the BP well in the plumes' creation.

Together, the two studies confirm what in the early days of the spill was denied by BP and viewed skeptically by NOAA's chief -- that much of the crude that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon well stayed beneath the surface of the water.

<more>