|
Post by marchesarosa on Sept 9, 2010 18:09:09 GMT 1
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment CorrespondentPosted 2010/08/24 at 3:37 pm EDT WASHINGTON, Aug. 24, 2010 (Reuters) A Manhattan-sized plume of oil spewed deep into the Gulf of Mexico by BP’s broken Macondo well has been consumed by a newly discovered fast-eating species of microbes, scientists reported on Tuesday. The microbes survive in cold deep water by seeking out leaking oil from natural leaks. The micro-organisms were apparently stimulated by the massive oil spill that began in April, and they degraded the hydrocarbons so efficiently that the plume is now undetectable, said Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. These so-called proteobacteria — Hazen calls them “bugs” — have adapted to the cold deep water where the big BP plume was observed and are able to biodegrade hydrocarbons much more quickly than expected, without significantly depleting oxygen as most known oil-depleting bacteria do. newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/08/24/deepwater-oil-plume-microbes/Ain't nature wonderful?
|
|
|
Post by yellowcat on Sept 9, 2010 20:25:24 GMT 1
As far as I could see the article did not say that the oil plume had gone, just that it was being broken down by the psychrophilic gamma-proteobacteria . The reason that oxygen levels were not more depleted was due to the lack of iron in the water preventing rapid growth of the proteobacteria.
Still it will eventually be degraded.
There must have natural oil seepage for a very long time for these bacteria to have evolved to digest oil.
|
|
|
Post by trollhunterx on Sept 9, 2010 20:36:24 GMT 1
Poor wording from Reuters' correspondent, but then, aren't journalistic standards slipping everywhere?
|
|
|
Post by rsmith7 on Sept 9, 2010 22:07:36 GMT 1
I think the telling thing about this non-disaster is the news footage. Despite the world's media hiring every helicopter and light aircraft in the southern USA, the most shocking image they ever came up with was a light sheen on a small area of sea. Anti-oil eco-propaganda.
|
|
|
Post by rsmith7 on Sept 9, 2010 23:41:06 GMT 1
Aw Joanne, where's your sense of humour gone
|
|
|
Post by lazarus on Sept 10, 2010 2:06:35 GMT 1
|
|
|
Post by lazarus on Sept 10, 2010 3:02:24 GMT 1
|
|
|
Post by marchesarosa on Sept 10, 2010 9:32:45 GMT 1
I take it you did not yourself read the links contained in your Huffington Post reference?
There is nothing there that contradicts the finding of the Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that the plume is being rapidly degraded. I think the alarmism may be yet another example of grant seeking behaviour on the part of various other academic institutions eager to get in on the "research" action.
|
|
|
Post by eamonnshute on Sept 10, 2010 9:41:24 GMT 1
|
|
|
Post by marchesarosa on Sept 10, 2010 9:45:34 GMT 1
Sad little victims of the oil spill!
Your point was?
|
|
|
Post by eamonnshute on Sept 10, 2010 9:49:51 GMT 1
You know perfectly well what my point is. But what is the point of your OP? It merely says that the ecosystem will recover from this disaster, apart from species that become extinct. Which is stating the bleeding obvious.
|
|
|
Post by havelock on Sept 10, 2010 9:50:01 GMT 1
|
|
|
Post by rsmith7 on Sept 10, 2010 11:42:23 GMT 1
I am an animal lover. I also employed an animal lover once. He wondered why I didn't think much of seals. It didn't take him long to change his tune. After hauling 100 lobster pots, 80% of them having been torn open by seals he referred to them in slightly more colourful terms.
|
|
|
Post by helen on Sept 10, 2010 11:56:38 GMT 1
I fear then that an oil spill from the North Sea would be, for you R-Smith, a blip? I guess that most North Sea oil rigs are several miles from your lobster beds just as the Gulf rigs are scores of miles from the mussel shoals of Louisiana. Get a grip R-Smith and........no, you can't care about other folk - always seems ironic that a bloke on a remote island calls the way the world works. Do you need us here in Britain? Scotland?
|
|
|
Post by rsmith7 on Sept 10, 2010 12:36:16 GMT 1
helen darling, Remember the Braer - much closer to me than BP's rig was to louisiana. ...or Piper Alpha - happened to be connected to the pipe that runs past my kitchen window on the sea bed. Effect on shellfish - zero.
|
|