On April 20th, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and set off the largest oil spill in US history, and nearly a year later the full impact of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude oil that spilled into the ocean are still being discovered.[1]
Besides the immediate effects on wildlife in the wake of an oil spill, scientists are still discovering just how much damage the oil will do to the ocean ecosystem as a whole, particularly the effects of gases like methane on oxygen levels in the water, which in turn affects how quickly microbes are able to break down the oil. It’s already known that runoff from commercial fertilizers can create “dead zones” of low oxygen, which can affect marine life for decades to come. So far scientists have not found any areas of low oxygen that are at levels unable to support marine life, but the oil presents another danger in that it creates complex chains of molecules that are much harder to break down, and can even cause bacteria to mutate.
However, mother nature has shown versatility during the disaster, particularly when it comes to that methane gas. Scientists estimated that it would take the better part of a year for the methane to disappear, but to their surprise 5 months in the methane was almost completely gone thanks to increased bacteria count in the water. This is particularly important because increased methane gas in the atmosphere is thought to contribute to global warming, but the planet’s own system of regulation has so far been able to deal with the methane from the spill on its own. Another possibility is that the bacteria may in fact adapt in the wake of the spill to be more efficient the next time there is a massive spill, though it will hopefully not come to that. [2]
On the human side, inventive scientists have taken the robots originally used to dig the oil well that caused the disaster to both plug it and study the after effects. These Remotely Operated Vehicles, or ROVs for short, worked around the clock to choke off the stream of oil and eventually plug the leaky well under the remote control of a technician, and the engineers of Oceaneering, the operators of the ROVs, had to invent tools virtually overnight to combat the spill and measure how much oil was leaking out at any given time.
Additional AUVs, or autonomous underwater vehicles, also worked to monitor the plume of oil as it spread and allow the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office to monitor the location of the spill in real time and react proactively to landfall before it even occurred. Some robots were even able to “think” in a limited capacity and change their behavior based on the amount of light filtering through the water to collect samples of denser material to analyze. [3]
In the wake of the spill and looking forward to the future, it’s likely more rigs liked those used in the aftermath of the spill will be used before accidents happen in order to pick the best drilling sites, and hopefully prevent more spills of this scale.
[1] Bourne, Joel K. Jr. Why the Gulf Oil Spill Isn’t Going Away. National Geographic News, September 15, 2010.
[2] Handwerk, Brian. Gulf Oil Surprise: Methane Almost Gone. National Geographic News, January 6, 2011
[3] Bourne, Joel K. Jr. Robots of the Gulf Spill: Fishlike Subs, Smart Torpedoes. National Geographic News, October 26, 2010
It’s interesting that you talk mostly about the mechanics of how people are trying to clean up the mess instead of the effects on the environment
“it creates complex chains of molecules that are much harder to break down, and can even cause bacteria to mutate”
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