The 2010 BP spill dumped 200 million gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil is now part of the ocean floor

Jan 31, 2015 08:55 GMT  ·  By

Back in April 2010, BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig, then operating in the Gulf of Mexico, exploded and sunk. Following this disaster, some 200 million gallons of crude oil spilled into local waters.

The oil and gas giant promised to clean up the site of the spill, but as it turns out, it didn't do a very good job. On the contrary, an impressive amount of oil is still resting on the ocean floor in this corner of the world.

In a recent paper in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, researchers argue that, according to their investigations into the matter at hand, millions of gallons of oil are now buried in sediment in the Gulf of Mexico.

How the oil ended up on the ocean floor

In the paper detailing their work, Florida State University scientist Jeff Chanton and fellow researchers explain that, in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill in April 2010, crude oil got tangled up with particles floating about in the Gulf of Mexico.

The clumps that formed in this manner eventually sunk to the ocean floor and were buried in sediment. The specialists go on to detail that, of the crude oil that hit the environment when energy company BP's rig malfunctioned, 6 to 10 million gallons still sit on the ocean floor.

Based on information obtained while surveying the Gulf of Mexico, Florida State University researcher Jeff Chanton and his colleagues believe this oil to be located at a distance of about 62 miles (nearly 100 kilometers) southeast of the Mississippi Delta.

This hidden oil is a threat to local ecosystems

The specialists behind this investigation warn that, although hidden in sediment deposits on the ocean floor, this crude oil that is still lurking in the Gulf of Mexico constitutes a threat to local ecosystems.

“This is going to affect the Gulf for years to come. Fish will likely ingest contaminants because worms ingest the sediment, and fish eat the worms. It’s a conduit for contamination into the food web,” Jeff Chanton told the press in an interview.

True, some of the bacteria populating the Gulf of Mexico have the ability to break down oil and help clean after spills. The trouble is that, because it is buried in the ocean floor, the oil left behind by the 2010 BP spill is quite safe from such microorganisms.

As Jeff Chanton put it, “Less oxygen exists on the sea floor relative to the water column, so the oiled particles are more likely to become hypoxic, meaning they experience less oxygen. Once that happens, it becomes much more difficult for bacteria to attack the oil and cause it to decompose.”