[Wonder Warthog]

"Plus, plenty of tarlike hydrocarbons—which are far too big for microbes to chew up—spilled, too."

Uh, no. It just takes longer.

[thackney]

Some of those are going to get trapped on the bottom under sediment without sufficient nutrients to allow microbes to complete their work.

In a 100 million years or so, they will likely be part of another buried oil field...