Gulf Oil Spill a "Dead Zone in the Making"?After the 1979 Ixtoc oil spill (which was far larger than the Deepwater Horizon spill) in the Gulf of Mexico, the area's infauna were reduced by up to 90 percent, Tunnell said—a potential reason many bird species left the area in the wake of the nine-month-long spill.
However, there may be a bright side: Organisms at the bottom of the food chain reproduce more rapidly than bigger animals, Tunnell pointed out by email. After the Ixtoc spill, infauna returned to pre-spill levels within about a year.