Study: Petroleum-eating microbes significantly reduced gulf oil plume ( Deepwater Horizon oilspill )

Washington Post ^ | Tuesday, August 24, 2010; 1:44 PM | David Brown

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Gulf of Mexico ecosystem was ready and waiting for something like the Deepwater Horizon blowout, and seems to have made the most of it, a new scientific study suggests.

Petroleum-eating bacteria - which had dined for eons on oil seeping naturally through the sea floor - proliferated in the cloud of oil that drifted underwater for months after the April 20 accident. They not only outcompeted fellow microbes, they each ramped up their own internal metabolic machinery to digest the oil as efficiently as possible.

The result was a nature-made cleanup crew capable of reducing the amount of oil in the undersea "plume" by half about every three days, according to research published online Tuesday by the journal Science.

The findings, by a team of scientists led by Terry C. Hazen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laborator, in California, help explain one of the biggest mysteries of the disaster - where has all the oil gone?

"What we know about the degradation rates fits with what we are seeing in the last three weeks," Hazen said. "We've gone out to the sites and we don't find any oil but we do find the bacteria."

The findings point to a different conclusion from that drawn by many readers of a study published last week, also in the journal Science. That research, by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute found no reduction in the oxygen content of the gigantic oil plume, suggesting that microbes were consuming the oil very slowly.

The study published Tuesday also suggests indirectly that dispersants used to break the wellhead stream of oil into a mass of sub-microscopic particles may have speeded the cleanup.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I’ll check back later for the debate results....go to go out for a medical appointment,...not sure when I will be back.

[Marty62]

LIL’ Piggies

[NoLibZone]

I am pro- Drill baby drill.

I just question why I should trust UC Berkley?

I’d LOVE to read of others backing this up rather than using Berkley as defense that nature heals itself.

[evad]

Wait till they say the microbes released a massive amount of CO2 digesting the oil. Sped climate change up by 10 years. ;)

Then they will be subject to a fine...say...20 billion.

Bye the bye, how's that original BP 20 billion going along?

[Marty62]

Oh I don’t know. Where is the OIL?

[Texas Fossil]

Of course this good news will not cause the idiot Traitor in the White House to let the hard working folks in the oil drilling business go back to work.

[Carry_Okie]

Then they will be subject to a fine...say...20 billion.

Lol, BP made money on that deal.

[daniel1212]

Can they give something to the Creator for the orgs?

[5thGenTexan]

No kidding. If it can’t be detected, how do they know it remains? Tree ... woods ... you know the story.

[chessplayer]

And the coverup continues. Gotta protect the Emperors ass at all costs, you know.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Ernest. A Thomas Gold ping.

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[Lee'sGhost]

Damn. Beat me to it.

[TigersEye]

Little bugs feed bigger bugs. Bigger bugs feed fish.

Nature healed what man inflicted in 1979 Gulf spill Read more: June 10, 2010

" "A lot of the fishermen around here will tell you that the fish never came back,'' says Vega Morales. ``They'll say, `Oh, in the old days, you could catch fish with your hat, it was so easy.' That's how we are, always talking about the one that got away. But the truth is, after maybe nine months or so, it was back to normal." " (Ixtoc 1)

"Soto, who followed the fish and shrimp population off Mexico closely, found to his surprise that for most species the numbers had returned to normal within two years."

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Oil Cleanup Expert Comments on Gulf Spill

"Every year 2 million to 12 million tons of oil naturally seep from the ocean floor and into the sea. In fact, many of the deposits in the Gulf of Mexico were discovered by observing these oil seeps, which is why the hydrocarbon degraders are everywhere, waiting for their “dinner” or fuel. Fishermen should be prepared for the extra catches that are coming because after every major oil spill there’s an explosion of local fish."

"But before a fish explosion can happen, the microorganisms need to be able to get to the oil and digest it. Since oil and water don’t mix, adding a dispersant will accelerate the breakdown of the oil, making it more available to the microorganisms."

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1979's Ixtoc oil well blowout in Gulf of Mexico has startling parallels to current disaster

"Even with those obstacles, fishers still managed to amass an impressive catch in 1979 -- when oil was gushing into the Gulf."

"Researchers in Campeche found shrimping that year enjoyed a high. The total tonnage of seafood caught in the Gulf of Mexico grew by 5.9 percent compared with the previous 12 months, and octopus capture in the Bay of Campeche beat the previous record by 50 percent."

"Tunnell's follow-up research into life near Texas beaches showed that organisms whose populations were apparently reduced by the massive spill replenished themselves within a few years."

[evad]

Then they will be subject to a fine...say...20 billion. Lol, BP made money on that deal.

Yeah. I think they funded this thing with about half-a-bil.

That's probably all anyone will ever see.

[Carry_Okie]

Yeah. I think they funded this thing with about half-a-bil.

The whole thing was very slick, and strictly for public consumption.