Deepwater Horizon: Gulf of Mexico 'deep-cleaned' itself

[xchrom]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22075182


The explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig led to one of the worst oil disasters in history

New details have emerged about "self-cleaning" effects in the Gulf of Mexico witnessed in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Researchers reporting at the American Chemical Society conference revealed details of a cascade of micro-organisms that spring into action to degrade oil.

Research has also outlined how chemical "dispersants" used in clean-up efforts actually frustrate these processes.

However, the long-term effects of the weeks of oil exposure remain unknown.

[pscot]

1. I bet it's kind of like the way

a woman's body rejects pregnancy when she's raped. Nature just takes care of it. No worries, eh?

[Oakenshield]

2. Precisely the thought that crossed my mind too when I read the title.

Next thing we'll be reading, the earth is already showing signs of simply cooling itself naturally as we pollute the atmosphere.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Now why would researchers from the American Chemical Society

lead us astray??????

[happyslug]

4. Such oil consuming "bugs" have been known for decades.

Ever since oil was first formed millions of years ago, oil has leaked into the seas. No where near what man has caused in oil leaks, but a steady rate of oil leaks. Thus organisms were exposed to them, and evolved to use the oil as a source of energy and hydrocarbons. Given the nature of most single cell organisms, a rapid increase due to a rapid increase in oil should be expected. Once the oil is consumed, then expect a rapid die off.

Remember, the Gulf Coast was probably the richest oil depository in the world. Yes, the super giants of Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Siberia, Alaska and the North Sea were all larger then each of the various fields that make up the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana-Cuba triangle, but taken as a whole, when compared to the Giant Fields and oil fields around those Giant Fields, Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana-Cuba is the largest group of fields in the world.

The Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana-Cuba fields are all small, due to how the fields were formed. All were in a shadow sea when the algae that would become oil grew and died off. The area turned to land and was crisscrossed with various rivers that cut the one large former sea into various small oil fields. This did not occur just once, but several times over the last several million years. Thus you have many small oil fields, all crisscrossed with former river beds that permitted small oil leaks over the last millions of years. Thus, you had a steady feed of oil, to support oil consuming organisms. That small body of organism could expand when oil leaks increased, and die down when oil leaks decreased. Thus the organism were ready willing and able to expand in response to any oil leak.

At the time of the leak, the main concern was the dispersing material, for it was used more to hide the oil then to dispersed the oil (Please note, the leak itself was the main concern, but for this discussion I leave that to another topic, I am restricting my comments to how the oil that leaked through the lead was handled NOT the leak itself).

Now these organism are doing what they have been doing for millions of years, but the amount of oil is way more then previous leaks, including man made leaks. Over time these organism will do what they do but the damage is way more then is "normal" for traditional oil leaks. We have to be careful that we do NOT take these organism out of context, they are doing a lot of good, but a lot more damage was done due to the oil then even these organism can undo.