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'Frothy Gunk' From Deepwater Horizon Spill Harming Coral
sciencehabit writes "The massive oil spill that inundated the Gulf of Mexico in the spring and summer of 2010 severely damaged deep-sea corals more than 11 kilometers from the well site, a sea-floor survey conducted within weeks of the spill reveals. At one site, which hadn't been visited before but had been right in the path of a submerged 100-meter-thick oil plume from the spill, researchers found a variety of corals — most of them belonging to a type of colonial coral commonly known as sea fans — on a 10-meter-by-12-meter outcrop of rock. Many of the corals were partially or completely covered with a brown, fluffy substance that one team member variously calls 'frothy gunk,' 'goop,' and 'snot.'"
That's why Santorum supports more drilling.
Santorum.
What's the worst that could happen?
We already have a perfect name for the frothy brown substance..santorium
Given how much oil leaked I don't see this as a great shock. There's probably some legitimate technical interest in exactly how far the oil spreads and how it does damage, but to an outside observer it seems like a foregone conclusion that a massive oil spill will probably do bad things to the area.
Frothy Gunky post... hey! it's relevant!
Deep-sea santorum?
When the gulf states fisheries go titsup in the next years, will BP pay up?
Only if they're forced to do so.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I thought this was about the Presidential election. Thankfully I take the time to read the the summary, well, most of it. Some.
I repeat: BP is spreading santorum
We're sorry. We said we were sorry. Go away. Leave us alone.
What else do you you want? We've got a money fight in half an hour.
From what I've read it was the dispersant chemicals (frothy gunk) that caused most of the damage. The oil by itself would have eventually been eaten by bacteria, and recycled back into the ecosystem (as happens with all dead plant matter).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
and what does it have to do with Santorum?
be GONE thy insidious wrenched beast! GO! SCAT! BE GONE I SAY!
forgot the all-important "/s for sarcasm"
Anyone else saw Frothy Gunk and thought it was a story about a new Ubuntu release?
Boo hoo hoo. I could give a rat's ass.
I thought that frothy gunk or sludge was called santorum.
This was literally a cover up. Dump toxic chemicals on top of the oil slick, so it would sink, thus avoiding the PR disaster that came with a beach landing of oil slicks. So they traded the beach for the sea floor, and most Americans promptly went back to bed, or down to the beach to let their kids swim.
Or better yet, convert the country over to renewable alternative fuels, such as solar, hydro, geothermal, wind, etc. Subsidize electric cars instead of oil companies so that the power is generated at scale in power plants instead of hideously inefficiently inside relatively hideously inefficient internal combustion engines.
You'd kill two birds with one stone. Most of these power generation technologies are much cleaner, so you don't have to worry about things like oil spills. Also, you'd permanently sever our parasitic and detrimental dependence on the Middle East and other oil-producing countries that do not have our best interest in mind. And it's better for us as well--imagine never having to go to a gas station to "fill up" again, and paying less than 25% for the energy equivalency of gasoline.
It is frothy, contains oil and water, and was caused by drilling a hole in the wrong place. Shouldn't we call it "santorum"?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Please don't send the secret service after me.
Sounds like the broken well is releasing santorum into the sea. Doesn't get much more toxic than that.
BP somehow got the reef covered in santorum? What the hell were they thinking?
The "frothy gunk" is not what's harming the coral, it's the result. The gunk consists partly of oil, but also protective mucus from the coral itself, as well as bits of dead coral polyps.
You say this, and yet you're one of the people who's completely excusing Transocean of their part in all this...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
I guess Cthulu has been beating off?
Where IS Captain Hindsight when we need him?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Google: santorum urban dictionary
Yeah, that's interesting.
It's unclear from the article, but is this actually the fault of OIL (which, as I understand, naturally seeps quite frequently from the Gulf floor) or is it more an issue with the dispersants applied to push the oil down into the water column? To me, that seems more a likely culprit than the oil alone.
"In almost half of the 43 corals studied at the site, the majority of animals had died or were showing signs of stress, the researchers say. And in more than one-quarter of the corals, more than 90% of the animals showed such damage. Also, more than half of the brittle stars, a relative of starfish, found clinging to the sea fans were partially or completely bleached white, another certain sign of stress, says Fisher."
Lots of stats being layered suspiciously here.
So in "almost half" a "majority" had died or showed "some" stress.
And in "more than 1/4", "more than 90%" showed "such" damage.
Meaning in the first case that an actual majority of corals (and significant portions of the remainder) showed no stress at all? And in the second case that (roughly) 75% showed NO damage?
To me, that's downright astonishing.
It's far more worthy of reporting than the summary/title that some downstream corals have been harmed by the largest spill in human history.
-Styopa
...so Santorum is for it?
What I never hear about is what the experience is longer term with these spills is. In world war 2, many oil tankers and other ships were sunk with huge amounts of all types of fuel from heavy bunker oil to aviation gasoline. What is the effect at these sites 70 years later? Should be easy to go see.
Why is it that this entire thread has been riddled with "Santorum" comments, yet only a couple people seem to have wanted to start any sort of informed discussion about this issue?
Sure, Americans DID go back to bed after the BP disaster (to quote another /.'er) but this disaster is still the reason I think twice before eating shrimp in the U.S. It's an environmental disaster of epic proportions, and we've just let it ride.... even on Slashdot? I remember reading article after article, the outrage and hope that big oil would finally get it's comeuppance... and now nothing?
Also, if any of you people are paid to troll this thread with nonsense (and I know someone in marketing who says this is more likely than you might think), then shame on you.
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http://www.spreadingsantorum.com/
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Please grant us more federal funds so that we may continue to study it for the next 30 years.
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Frothy gunk is not scientific jargon. Oil spills occur in the ocean naturally all the time. Deep fissures release oil when platectonic forces destabilize the ocean floor. This was crude, something mother nature is prepared to deal with. And it has. Thank God. But it is interesting to note that Pres. Obama has licensed more deep well drilling in 3 years than Pres. Bush did in 8. That hypocrisy is so typical.
BP paid billions and employees will be tried in criminal court. But the EPA which admitted that the plans for the plug were not reviewed properly by their department, nor were the inspections carried out properly. Yet NOONE from the EPA is being fired! NOONE is being charged with neglect or incompetence! That is the real disaster in all of this.
So a 7 mile radius? I'm not saying it's not bad, but the Gulf of Mexico is much bigger than that. It doesn't seem to me that this is the end of the world or even the Gulf of Mexico.
Okay, fair enough, you never specifically used the name BP in your comment, so I may have mischaracterized your comment as supporting the GP's "BP are the only guys responsible!!!" message.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them