How Will The Gulf Oil Spill Affect Public Health?

Woods Hole Scientists Have Sights on Deep Sea Plume



Boston Globe Article, August 20, 2010
Wired Science's Great Article on Undersea Presence of Oil
Gulf Oil Plume in Wired Science, August 19, 2010

Gulf Oil Plume Discovered:
National Geographic, August 19, 2010

BBC News Story
Where is the Oil?
Augiust 19, 2010

Scientists Dispute How Much Oil is Really Still in the Gulf:
Boston Globe Story
August 18, 2010

University of Georgia and Georgia Sea Grant's News Report:
70% of the Oil is Stll There!
August 17, 2010

From Deep Sea News:
"The report also emphasizes that the most toxic components of crude oil (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a.k.a. PAHs) are not typically degraded by marine decomposers, who usually prefer short-chain hydrocarbons. In terms of human impacts, these scientists underline an urgent need for an atmospheric sampling program to measure airborne oil components—these may have serious environmental and health-related effects on downwind Gulf cities like Atlanta. Such a study would also help to accurately assess evaporation rates of oil.
The good news? The oil appears to be staying in the Gulf (so far) and Eddy Franklin is currently blocking the Loop Current from dragging oiled water into the Gulf Stream and up the Eastern seaboard."
Read about Oily Bottom Syndrome in the Gulf:
CNN Reports from The Gulf, August 17, 2010


Map of the Impact of the Disaster, CNN Reports

Read about the value of the dispersants used in the Gulf Spill:
May, 2010
Wired Science Reports

How Will The Gulf Oil Spill Affect Public Health?: Popular Science Magazine

The Coast is Not Clear: Bloomberg Business Week

"The single biggest challenge to the Gulf's ecosystem may be the ongoing loss of wetlands, estimated at 25 to 30 square miles' worth per year. Estuaries and marshes provide shelter for commercially important crabs and shrimp. They also buffer humans from the impact of hurricanes and soak up the nitrogenous compounds from fertilizer and manure runoff that are borne down the Mississippi. Nitrogen that the wetlands don't capture feeds algal blooms. Bacteria that feed on the algae use up oxygen in the depths of the Gulf, creating a seasonal "dead zone" that's hospitable only to jellyfish, bacteria, and some worms. This month the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium announced that the low-oxygen zone extended for 7,722 square miles, the fifth biggest on record."

Gulf Oil Spill: Dead Zone in the Making
National Geographic, May, 2010