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FOR EDUCATORS

LESSON PLANS & ACTIVITIES

Gulf Oil Spill

The Ocean Portal Team

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico impacts the coast at Pass a Loutre, La. Photo was taken on June 2, 2010.

Credit:

Office of the Governor of the State of Louisiana

The Gulf oil spill is recognized as the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Within days of the April 20, 2010 explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people, remote underwater cameras revealed the BP pipe was leaking oil and gas on the ocean floor about 42 miles off the coast of Louisiana. By the time the well was capped on July 15, 2010 (87 days later), an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil had leaked into the Gulf.

The well is located 5,000 feet beneath the water’s surface in the vast frontier of the deep sea—a permanently dark environment, marked by constantly cold temperatures just above freezing and extremely high pressures. Scientists divide the ocean into at least three zones, and the deep ocean accounts for about three-quarters of Earth’s total ocean volume.

Immediately after the explosion, workers from BP and Transocean (owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig), and many government agencies tried to control the spread of the oil to beaches and other coastal ecosystems using floating booms to contain surface oil and chemical oil dispersants to break it down underwater. Additionally, numerous scientists and researchers descended upon the Gulf region to gather data. Researchers are still trying to understand the spill and its impact on marine life, the Gulf coast, and human communities.

Three years later, the Gulf is still not oil free.

Science

The Spill

Mark Dodd, a wildlife biologist from Georgia's Department of Natural Resources, surveying oiled sargassum seaweed in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.

Credit:

Georgia Department of Natural Resources

The Spill

Over 87 days, the damaged Macondo wellhead in the deep sea—around 5,000 feet down—leaked an estimate 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, making the spill the largest accidental spill in history. Once the oil left the well, it spread throughout the water column. Some floated to the ocean surface to form oil slicks, which can spread more quickly by being pushed by winds. Some floated in the midwater, rising from the wellhead like a chimney and forming a 22-mile long oil plume. This plume formed because chemical dispersants, released into the water to break up the oil so it could wash away, allowed the oil to mix with seawater and stay suspended below the surface. And some oil sunk to the seafloor by gluing together falling particles in the water such as marine snow. As much as 30% of the spilled oil may have ended up on the seafloor, damaging deep sea corals and potentially damaging other ecosystems that are unseen at the surface.

Collections

The Smithsonian's Department of Invertebrate Zoology has a collection of over 57,000 specimens from over 5,700 sites in the Gulf of Mexico, which are now catalogued on Google Earth

Credit:

Smithsonian Institution NMNH Department of Invertebrate Zoology

Smithsonian holdings may show oil's impact in Gulf

As scientists in the Gulf collect organisms potentially affected by the oil, they’ll need to compare them to animals from previous decades to identify how they’ve changed, if at all.

Here's where Smithsonian Collections can play a role. Soon after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Smithsonian Collections staff plotted invertebrate holdings from the Gulf onto Google Earth. Since 1979, invertebrate specimens have been deposited in the national collections of the National Museum of Natural History's Department of Invertebrate Zoology. In the Gulf of Mexico, more than 57,000 invertebrates (points on the map) from 5,789 distinct collecting sites from 14 Mineral Management Service survey programs (point colors) have been cataloged.

Following the Deepwater Horizon incident in late April 2010, collections staff updated the files to reflect the latest areas affected by the spill in real-time. “The points on the map represent less than half of our Gulf of Mexico holdings, the rest—approximately 75,000—still need to be processed and cataloged,” said Bill Moser, museum specialist.

Research

Marine ecologist Dr. Jeremy Jackson and a team of researchers conducted an in-depth study of the effects of a 1986 oil spill on the coast of Panama.

Credit:

Smithsonian Ocean Portal

Oil Spill Lessons from Panama

A Smithsonian study of a 1986 oil spill on the coast of Panama is attracting renewed interest for its insights into the effects of oil spills on coastal systems. Working with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, marine ecologist Dr. Jeremy Jackson and a team of researchers examined the spill’s immediate and long-term effects on the coast in Bahia las Minas, Panama.

The benchmark study (PDF), published in 1989, documented the damage oil causes to coastal and tidal habitats. It's particularly notable because it includes 15 years of ecological data about the area before the spill collected by the Smithsonian. The affected area includes the Smithsonian biological reserve known as the Galeta Marine Laboratory. “What we learned, in a nutshell, was never, ever, ever, ever allow oil to get into a complex coastal system of mangroves, sea grasses, and coral reefs because you’ll never get it out,” said Dr. Jackson.

In this video interview with the Smithsonian Ocean Portal, he reflects on the Panama study and its implications for the Gulf oil spill, and reminds listeners that the greatest threats to the ocean—overfishing, climate change, and other types of pollution—combined actually exceed the devastation the unfolded in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. “If there’s any silver lining in the [Gulf] oil spill,” he said, “it’s that it might make us wake up to the magnitude of what we’re dealing with.”

Featured Scientist

Dr. Chris Reddy, an environmental chemist from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, studies oil spills and their long-term impacts.

Credit:

History Channel & Smithsonian Institution

Dr. Chris Reddy, Marine Chemist

At Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, Chris Reddy studies the long-term effects of oil spills, as well as natural oil seeps that occur off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. In this video, watch as he digs beneath the surface in Wild Harbor salt marsh in Cape Cod, Massachusetts to find layers of oil from a spill that occurred more than 40 years ago. This leftover oil continues to impact the wetland's ecology and wildlife. “When this spill first occurred in 1969, about a month after I was born, people thought that it would only last a week,” he says. And to the naked eye, the marsh looks beautiful and pristine. But oil has persisted in the sediments and continues to adversely affect the marsh’s mussels, crabs, and grasses. “Oil can last for a long time and has a lot of biological impact.” In June 2010, Dr. Reddy testified before a Congressional panel investigating the Gulf oil spill.

Technology

An autonomous underwater vehicle from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) being launched from the NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter in the Gulf of Mexico.

Credit:

Underwater robot

In May 2010, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) sent a high-tech robotic submersible to the oily waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was programmed at the surface, and then navigated through the water on its own, collecting information on deep oil plumes from the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig accident. Although satellites and aircraft helped show the extent of the spill at the surface, researchers hoped that the AUV would allow them understand what was happening farther down in the water column.

During the NOAA-sponsored expedition, MBARI's AUV mapped part of a plume 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) below the surface, and collected water samples at various depths. The resulting data helped the researchers identify a persistent deep oil plume and link the oil in this plume to its source: the Deepwater Horizon blowout.

Threats & Solutions

Human health risks

Workers contracted by BP load oily waste onto a trailer on Elmer's Island, just west of Grand Isle, La., May 21, 2010.

Credit:

U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley

Human health risks

In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, concerns about public health focused on people coming into direct contact with the oil and dispersants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offered safety advice to Gulf Coast residents and relief workers. And the EPA conducted toxicity tests on dispersants. However, longterm questions about oil spills and their impact on human health remain. The National Institutes of Health plans to address these in a study that will track 55,000 cleanup workers and volunteers for a decade. The research will assess whether exposure to crude oil and dispersants has an effect on physical and mental health.

As the days, weeks, and months progressed the indirect impacts related to seafood consumption have also gained attention. The chemicals in oil that are of most concern to humans are called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Some of these are known to cause cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is charged with monitoring the levels of PAHs in Gulf Coast seafood. It works in conjunction with NOAA, the EPA, and state agencies to determine which fisheries are safe to open and which ones should remain closed. In order for a fishery to be reopened, it must pass both a "smell" test and a chemical analysis. Seafood cannot go to market if it contains harmful levels of PAHs or if it emits an odor associated with petroleum or dispersants. Fishing area closures peaked on June 2, 2010, when 88,522 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico were off-limits. On April 19, 2011, NOAA announced that commercial and recreational fishing could resume in all of the federal waters that were affected by the spill.

One of many Kemp’s ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys kempii) recovering at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Turtles were cleaned and nursed back to health with the help of New England Aquarium staff.

Credit:

New England Aquarium

Rescuing Animals in the Oil Spill

Pictures of pelicans, sea turtles, and other Gulf of Mexico wildlife struggling in oil were among some of the most disturbing images of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in 2010. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, thousands of “visibly” oiled animals —which includes birds, sea turtles, and marine mammals--were collected by authorities in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Many of the animals were already dead, but for those found alive, dozens of organizations, including the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park and the New England Aquarium (NEA), were mobilized to rescue, rehabilitate, and later release animals affected by the spill. National Zoo personnel were dispatched to the Gulf largely to assist with the process of relocating animals affected by the spill and helping to identify future release sites for those rescued. Dr. Luis Padilla, a Zoo veterinarian who helped with a pelican release in Texas, and Dr. Judilee Marrow were among those who assisted in the Gulf.

NEA staff who helped to rehabilitate sea turtles rescued from the Gulf oil spill offered a behind-the-scenes view on the aquarium’s Marine Animal Rescue Team Blog. The blog described how rescuers in boats and spotter planes were “looking for rounded mounds on the surface of the oil, which usually means that there is a turtle floating under the surface of the oil." The rescue team, based at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, treated dozens of endangered sea turtles, such as Kemp's ridley, loggerheads, green sea turtles, and hawksbills. To learn more about how oil affects marine life, watch this video from the Pew Environment Group that explains the impact of oil on marine life throughout the water column and check out this fact sheet from U.S. Fish and Wildlife which summarizes “Effects of Oil on Wildlife and Habitat.” We may not know the full effects of the spill on animals - both big and small - for years to come.

Dr. Sylvia Earle

Credit:

Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming

The Case for the Gulf

In testimony before a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and former chief scientist of NOAA, offered specific suggestions for addressing the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf and delivered an impassioned call for greater investment in ocean research—including more expeditions to explore the Gulf’s deep waters, establishing permanent monitoring stations and protocols, and encouraging tri-national collaboration among scientists and institutions around the Gulf. “No one has descended to the greatest depth in the Gulf of Mexico, about three miles down in the Sigsbee Deep near Yucatan. In fact, no one knows for sure exactly where the deepest place in the Gulf is, or if they do, proving it has been an elusive goal,” she said.

Comments

I was ruminating last night

I was ruminating last night and came up with a potential good idea to stop the spill in maybe a couple of days of effort.

Imagine in your mind a common slide type Mikuni Morotcycle carb. The float bowl represents the underground oil reserve, the air passing through the venturi is the lower pressure in the deep water. The main jet is the original bore hole that presumably goes straight down into the Earth below whatever messes they have made trying to stop the gusher. Now roll the throttle to the off position and you see the needle going into the main jet and reducing the amount of fuel by the graduating taper.

My idea is to get some tubing that has as it's O.D. the I.D. of the existing bore hole with a tapered end so it slides in with little guidance. The new pipe should be extra thick so as to reinforce the existing original pipe and as long as needed to get into the rock sub-strata so as to bypass any compromised original bore pipe that may be fractured in place. Once the needed length is determined a valve can be installed but left in the open position until the final part is completed so as to keep the whole deal from being pushed up out of the hole like a blowgun dart. After the new tubing has been inserted, a flange below the new shutoff valve can be weighted by the dumping of granite blocks which would be impervious to the action of Saltwater and electrolysis. Several tons should be plenty to overwhelm the oil pressure trying to push up the new pipe once the new valve is closed to allow hook up to the rig to begin flow to whatever they use to get the oil to the refinery. Perhaps some kind of compression rings - like any piston has - could be employed to keep oil from leaking by the small gap between the two pipes. Once leakage has been addressed, a robot welder can finish this patch and perhaps even bolster this union with additional metal sleeving.

First off, I think whatever crap they have lying about near the bore from the original setup should be scraped off and a suction style dredge used to remove the loose sand, exposing the original bore pipe so the new tubing can be inserted cleanly.

What do you think, and who/where would I/you send this idea off too?

Wow, it's great that you have

Wow, it's great that you have put so much thought into this!

You can submit spill clean-up ideas through the U.S. EPA's website or through the Unified Command's site.

If you're interested in how ideas are being sorted and prioritized, check out this recent article from Business Week.

It is so sad that the animals

It is so sad that the animals are getting killed like this. i wish there was something I could do.:(

I have been thinking about a

I have been thinking about a way to stop the oil spill ever since my teacher started talking about the oil spill. I thought that maybe the people that lives there can help with the oil spill by using this machine to try sucking the oil out of the water.They can do it everyday like a job you do everyday. Then maybe the oil spill will be sucked up! I wish the people luck that is trying to do this!!!!!!!!!!!:)

I think i have an idea. you

I think i have an idea. you will have to use a pipe. in the pipe, there shall be a sponge, and some kind of filter. then you put it in the water. this machine will somehow filter the water. then, when it used, make more or just try to scrub the oil out of the " filter thing". This is just an "idea" to help. it may not work, but may give other people ideas.

When my teacher told me about

When my teacher told me about the oil spill I was really sad to hear that the fish, the pelicans, and all the animals were dying because of it. If there was only a way to take all the oil and store it some place other then the ocean. I hope the oil gets cleaned up fast so no more animals die. I hope the oil doesn't spread farther. The animals don't deserve this. This oil is destroying the environment. The ocean probably looks and feels like mud and, of course, oil. I feel sorry for the animals. I know it will be cleaned someday.

we should help the animals

we should help the animals when they are stuck in the oil or something:)

When I heard about the oil

When I heard about the oil spill I saw what had happen to the birds & fish I was sad they didn't do anything.

Submitted by Logan on Thursday, July 1, 2010 - 9
;57 PM

i know i feel waht you feel

i know i feel waht you feel because the president did not do enthing about waht happened to those poor animals and fish its just so sad he did not do enything about it .......... i wish i was the president

Hello. splendid job. I did

Hello. splendid job. I did not imagine this. This is a impressive story. Thanks! =-=

we need to help the ocean

we need to help the ocean life sothey will stay alive i remember the oil spill it killed most of the fish we don't ant that to happen agian so we need to help the ocean.

Is it still leaking?

This is horrible! Beautiful

This is horrible! Beautiful marine life, ruined! I heard about it and it just broke my heart!

I know

I know...82,000 birds harmed, 6,000 sea turtles, and 25,900 marine mammals harmed! Poor wittle guys!

i know that sucks ): but the

i know that sucks ): but the wittle guys are alresdy dead X_X ):

i think that the hurt and the

i think that the hurt and the kills of the animals is all the presidents fult because th r president should have done somthing righ taway about the oil spill. all those animal sorverd because of you.

the president really has a

the president really has a nerve not to do enything about what just happend to those poor animals and fish. i eish i was the president so i could do somthing about this ......... relply to me thank you

i really wish we could have

i really wish we could have saved those poor animals that died. =( the people who saved the animals in need, i bet if they could talk they would sincerely thank you for the love, help and compassion. =p

when i heard about the oil

when i heard about the oil spill it just crushed my heart into a million pieces. i really wish i could do something to help! all those animals that have died had hopes and dreams that will never happen, and for those who are living are singing" I AM A SURVIVOR, GOOD GRACIOUS IM A SURVIVOR" thank you for reading my comment! =D

Visit NOAA's Gulf Spill

Visit NOAA's Gulf Spill Restoration website to learn about how the President's Administration has responded to the oil spill and to submit your own clean-up proposals.

-The Ocean Portal Team

i think that the gulf oil

i think that the gulf oil spill was sad .i hated to see the anmals in danger and hearing peolpe died from it

I know if we all work

I know if we all work together to make the ocean and earth a better clean place to live on for thousands of generations

rovs back too the blow out

rovs back too the blow out sight & 10 MILES EACH WAY FROM IT !!!!

humans effects

can yall help them?

Amazing

This article has changed the way I view the ocean. I can't belive this terrible oil spill has killed so many amazing creatures. I wish the best of luck to all of you guys helpingout. thank you for everything!

oil spill im mexio

wow the gulf is kinda messy i hope they are all okay it might hram the anmials ): i hope they get it clean soon or ill go do it myself!!!!!! :)

The Gulf Spill

I really hope this gets cleaned up all the poor animals, I hope they enjoy heaven.

very useful

wow. this site is very accurate. i am glad to get info that is very specific. this kind of helps me out for my school project.
very awesome milkd mii

oil spill and filtering systems we use daily

I remember people saying hair was cleaning some of this mess up?? what's up?? is this cleaned up yet?? I didn't throw out my hair from my hair brush.. hair salons throw this stuff out every day.. It worked in the gold minds.. barbers use to cut the miners hair for free

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