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Psychological Effects of BP Oil Spill Go Beyond Residents of Impacted Shorelines

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2011Environment, Health1989 exxon valdez oil spill, alabama, anxiety and depression, bp oil spill, coastal communities, domestic violence, emotional and financial situations, environmental disaster, florida, franklin county, glenn morris, gulf fishing industries, gulf of mexico, human history, longitudinal analysis, natural events, oil exposure, oil spill, protein scum, psychological effects, psychological impact, red tide, seafood, spill, william mahan

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The psychological effects of the BP oil spill, the largest recorded environmental disaster in human history, extend far beyond people living around the areas of the Gulf of Mexico that were directly impacted by the spill, a new study finds.

Writing in the online edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institutes of Health, the researchers reported that even in areas that did not have oil exposure, people still experienced elevated levels of anxiety and depression and reduced ability to show resilience in difficult emotional and financial situations because of the disaster. (more…)

New View of Family Life in the North American Nebula

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2011Sciencecontamination, cosmic community, earth, gulf of mexico, infrared view, light years, luisa rebull, micron, NASA, north american nebula, spitzer image, spitzer space telescope, stars, toddler stars, wavelength, young stars, zodiacal dust

Pasadena, Calif. — Stars at all stages of development, from dusty little tots to young adults, are on display in a new image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

This cosmic community is called the North American nebula. In visible light, the region resembles the North American continent, with the most striking resemblance being the Gulf of Mexico. But in Spitzer’s infrared view, the continent disappears. Instead, a swirling landscape of dust and young stars comes into view.

“One of the things that makes me so excited about this image is how different it is from the visible image, and how much more we can see in the infrared than in the visible,” said Luisa Rebull of NASA’s Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. Rebull is lead author of a paper about the observations, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. “The Spitzer image reveals a wealth of detail about the dust and the young stars here.” (more…)

First Study of Dispersants in Gulf Spill Suggests a Prolonged Deepwater Fate

By Guest PostJanuary 29, 2011Environmentbiodegradation, biological exposure, chemical dispersant, chromatographic technique, david valentine, deep ocean, deepwater horizon oil spill, dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, doss, effects on corals, elizabeth b kujawinski, environmental data, fate of dispersants, gas flow, gulf of mexico, gulf spill, hydrocarbon, levels of methane, marshes and coastlines, melissa c kido soule, oil droplets, oil gas plume, toxicity, wellhead

To combat last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill, nearly 800,000 gallons of chemical dispersant were injected directly into the oil and gas flow coming out of the wellhead nearly one mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, as scientists begin to assess how well the strategy worked at breaking up oil droplets, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) chemist Elizabeth B. Kujawinski and her colleagues report that a major component of the dispersant itself was contained within an oil-gas-laden plume in the deep ocean and had still not degraded some three months after it was applied.

While the results suggest the dispersant did mingle with the oil and gas flowing from the mile-deep wellhead, they also raise questions about what impact the deep-water residue of oil and dispersant—which some say has its own toxic effects—might have had on environment and marine life in the Gulf. (more…)

USGS Undertakes Additional Studies of Reef Damage in Gulf of Mexico to Assess Cause

By Guest PostJanuary 4, 2011Environmentchemosynthetic tubeworm, coral tissues, deep sea reefs, deepwater horizon site, gulf of mexico, samples of coral

Gainesville, Fla.— A team of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and academic scientists are analyzing samples of coral and surrounding sediments from an area damaged near the Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf of Mexico. (more…)

BP Returns to Profit, Estimates Oil Spill at $40 Billion

By PravdaNovember 2, 2010Economybob dudley, bp, ceo, energy giant, gulf of mexico, oil spill, profit

Energy giant BP announced a return to profit on Tuesday but revealed new shock estimates for the cost of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, putting the expected bill at close to $40 billion.

The new figure is far higher than expected. BP said it had taken an additional charge of $7.7 billion during the third quarter, bringing the company’s own total estimated clean-up and legal costs to $39.9 billion. (more…)

BP to Pay $4,300 for Every Barrel of Spilled Oil

By Guest PostSeptember 18, 2010Economyamerican ecology, bp platform, deepwater horizon platform, gulf of mexico, oil pollution, spilled oil

The scandal around the oil spilt into the Gulf of Mexico does not subside. On Thursday, the information was released that U.S. authorities are preparing a lawsuit against the owner of the exploded BP platform, demanding compensation for damage caused by the leakage. Fines can reach $4,300 for each barrel of oil spilt in the waters of the Gulf, i.e., a total of approximately $17.6 billion. (more…)

Study Shows Deepwater Oil Plume in Gulf Degraded by Microbes

By Guest PostAugust 26, 2010Environmentberkeley lab, biodegradation, bp, carbon, deep-sea psychrophilic, deepwater horizon drilling, degradation, gamma-proteobacteria, gulf of mexico, hoi-ying Holman, hydrocarbon-degrading enzymes, microbial ecologist, oil dispersant corexit 9500, oil plume, oxygen depletion, petroleum, petroleum-degrading microbes, terry hazen

In the aftermath of the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, a dispersed oil plume was formed at a depth between 3,600 and 4,000 feet and extending some 10 miles out from the wellhead. An intensive study by scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) found that microbial activity, spearheaded by a new and unclassified species, degrades oil much faster than anticipated. This degradation appears to take place without a significant level of oxygen depletion.

(more…)

Deep Plumes of Oil Could Cause Dead Zones in the Gulf

By Guest PostAugust 21, 20101 commentEnvironmentalistair adcroft, dead zones, deepwater horizon spill, dissolved oil, gulf of mexico, hypoxic zones, methane, methane plumes, national oceanic and atmospheric administration, noaa, ocean hypoxia, oil, oxygen, pollution, princeton university, robert hallberg, simulation, toxic concentrations

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.

(more…)

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