Yep, it looks like the smoking gun - or rather, the raging oil plumes...
The chemical fingerprints are there. The fluffy brown "sea snot" covering - and subsequently killing - deepwater corals in the Gulf is most likely from the Deepwater Horizon gusher.
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and released Monday, research performed on dead and dying corals in an area southwest of the Macondo well shows that the chemical signature of the substance covering the coral connects it with the oil flowing from the blown-out well in the summer of 2010.
Deepwater corals are relatively rare in the Gulf, as most of the seafloor consists of silty mud. Corals must have a solid surface on which to attach, and these areas serve as small oases, populated by the corals and other filter feeders, sea stars and small crustaceans. Pelagics (the swimmers - from small fish to large fish, such as surface- dwelling tarpon and menhaden) are closely linked to these areas near the base of the food chain, so the death of these patches of life impacts the entire ecosystem.
The patch of coral studied is about the size of half a football field, in water a mile deep some seven miles southwest of Macondo.
"They figured (the coral damage) was the result of the spill, now we can say definitely it was connected to the spill," said Helen White, a chemical oceanographer with Haverford College and the lead researcher.
She said pinpointing the BP well as the source of the contamination required sampling sediment on the sea floor and figuring out what was oil from natural seeps in the Gulf and what was from the Macondo well. Finally, the researchers matched the oil found on the corals with oil that came out of the BP well.
Also, the researchers concluded that the damage was caused by the spill because an underwater plume of oil was tracked passing by the site in June 2010. The paper also noted that a decade of deep-sea coral research in the Gulf had not found coral dying in this manner. The coral was documented for the first time when researchers went looking for oil damage in 2010.
The material covering the corals and other sessile organisms consisted of mucus secreted by the corals (an indicator of stress) as well as fragments of dead coral polyps, fatty acids commonly found in biological tissues such as cell membranes, and petroleum residues, which were identified with the petroleum compounds specific to the Deepwater Horizon spill.
In almost half of the 43 corals studied at the site, the majority of animals had died or were showing signs of stress, the researchers say. And in more than one-quarter of the corals, more than 90% of the animals showed such damage. Also, more than half of the brittle stars, a relative of starfish, found clinging to the sea fans were partially or completely bleached white, another certain sign of stress, says Fisher.
The new findings "show clearly the very negative effects in deep-water communities from this spill," says Samantha Joye, a biogeochemist at the University of Georgia in Athens who wasn't involved in the research. The true extent of damage from the spill is, for now, tough to determine because so much of the sea floor hasn't been examined, she notes. "The deeper you look, the more you're going to find."
Researchers have returned to the site after the initial observations in 2010, but have not released the later findings.
Charles Fisher, a biologist with Penn State University who's led the coral expeditions, said recovery at any of the damaged sites would be slow.
"Things happen very slowly in the deep sea; the temperatures are low, currents are low, those animals live hundreds of years and they die slowly," he said. "It will take a while to know the final outcome of this exposure."
The researchers said the troubled spot consists of 54 coral colonies. The researchers were able to fully photograph and assess 43 of those colonies, and of those, 86 percent were damaged. They said 10 coral colonies showed signs of severe stress on 90 percent of the coral.
White, the lead researcher, said that this coral site was the only one found southwest of the Macondo well so far, but that others may exist. The researchers also wrote in the paper that it was too early to rule out serious damage at other coral sites that may have seemed healthy during previous examinations after the April 2010 spill.
As you might imagine, BP has had no comment regarding the study.
May they rot in a cold, dark, desolate, oily hell.
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