Deepwater Horizon oil spill "devastated" life on and near the seafloor

[malaise]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12520630
<snip>
Studies using a submersible found a layer, as much as 10cm thick in places, of dead animals and oil, said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia.

Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries.

She disputed an assessment by BP's compensation fund that the Gulf of Mexico will recover by the end of 2012.

Millions of barrels of oil spewed into the sea after a BP deepwater well ruptured in April 2010.
Oil slick Assessments of the clean-up effort have focused on the surface oil, but much oil remains at depth

Professor Joye told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington that it may be a decade before the full effects on the Gulf are apparent.
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[blindpig]

1. The professor is right.

And yet BP skates.

Ain't Capitalism grand?

[Altoid_Cyclist]

2. And our government responds by doing.......

(the sound of crickets)

Oh well, I'm sure that BP will do the reponsible thing and make sure that the environment, the fish, plants and other animal life are restored to their original bounty. The people who depend on the GOM will receive just compensation, the corporate media will continue to cover this on a daily basis and that flying pigs will abound as well.

ONGOING CRIME!!!

[maryf]

3. Also here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_sci_oil_spill_lingers

excerpt here:

Joye's research was more widespread, but has been slower in being published in scientific literature.

In five different expeditions, the last one in December, Joye and colleagues took 250 cores of the sea floor and travelled across 2,600 square miles. Some of the locations she had been studying before the oil spill on April 20 and said there was a noticeable change. Much of the oil she found on the sea floor — and in the water column — was chemically fingerprinted, proving it comes from the BP spill. Joye is still waiting for results to show other oil samples she tested are from BP's Macondo well.

She also showed pictures of oil-choked bottom-dwelling creatures. They included dead crabs and brittle stars — starfish like critters that are normally bright orange and tightly wrapped around coral. These brittle stars were pale, loose and dead. She also saw tube worms so full of oil they suffocated.

"This is Macondo oil on the bottom," Joye said as she showed slides. "This is dead organisms because of oil being deposited on their heads."

The slowness of scientific literature is very telling, the story isn't so "sexy" anymore so fewer people will be reading the truth; thanks for helping keep the truth alive! ...

[PCIntern]

4. I'm shocked. I gotta sit down...

who'd have believed that this could possibly happen? Everything was fine...they said so!

:sarcasm: just in case...

[malaise]

5. Wish I could laugh

We always knew better