Despite growing awareness of the problem of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans, little solid scientific information existed to illustrate the nature and scope of the issue.
WASHINGTON — A new simulation of oil and methane leaked into the Gulf of Mexico suggests that deep hypoxic zones or “dead zones” could form near the source of the pollution.
The research investigates five scenarios of oil and methane plumes at different depths and incorporates an estimated rate of flow from the Deepwater Horizon spill, which released oil and methane gas into the Gulf from April to mid July of this year.
Postdoctoral fellows and graduate students from Professor Mark Hernandez’s environmental engineering lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder will travel to the Gulf Coast this week to begin studying the effect of this summer’s oil spill on air quality along impacted shores. (more…)
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
WASHINGTON — A change in the color of ocean waters could have a drastic effect on the prevalence of hurricanes, new research indicates. In a simulation of such a change in one region of the North Pacific, the study finds that hurricane formation decreases by 70 percent. That would be a big drop for a region that accounts for more than half the world’s reported hurricane-force winds.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – A conference in Cork, Ireland co-organized by University of Maryland Biology Professor Arthur Popper (College of Chemical and Life Sciences) and Professor Tony Hawkins, former Director of Fisheries Research for Scotland and now an independent scientist, will look at the impact all kinds of noise has on life underwater.
WASHINGTON — A thick blanket of yellow haze hovering over Houston as a result of chemical pollution from petroleum products may be getting a little bit thinner, according to a new study. But the new findings — which have implications for petrochemical-producing cities around the world — come with a catch, says a team of scientists who participated in the research.
Thousands of dead fish washed ashore in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, on Monday.
