2010 Gulf Oil Spill and its effects (extra credit lecture)

Today I went to a lecture by Richard Lee from the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (Savannah, GA).  He began his lecture with a preface: spilled oil is common, but it is only the catastrophic events (like that of the Deep Horizon 2 years ago) that are widely publicized.  Only then, the oil spill is only on the public's mind for a few days, weeks, or months.  With the smaller spills, the marshes that are affected recover after a growing season. The damage is not permanent. Often, the efforts of the clean-up crews can be more devastating than the actual event (the use of warm water in the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska presented the environment with unnatural temperatures).



There are several ways to clean an oil spill: scoop it, try to burn it off (BAD!), let it come to shore, or use dispersants. Mr. Lee is mostly focused on the use of dispersants and their effects on the wildlife.  Dispersants make an emulsion of water and oil and cause the oil to fall from the surface. Fortunate for wildlife that dwell on the surface, but possibly detrimental to the zooplankton that feed below the surface. The dispersant also makes it more difficult to clean the oil once it has come ashore. Non-emulsified oil degrades after a few weeks, while the emulsified oil takes much longer (more than a year in some cases). What does the ingestion of oil mean for zooplankton, reasearchers cannot be sure. What is sure: some shores are affected more than others. Those with silt/clay soil make up are more affected than shores with rock and gravel.