Following the Deepwater Horizon, the Gulf of Mexico pretty much managed to clean itself

Apr 9, 2013 08:23 GMT  ·  By

A new research concerning the Deepwater Horizon disaster and its aftermath argues that, as evidence suggests, the Gulf of Mexico has a greater-than-expected “innate” ability to cleanse itself. The findings of this research were recently presented during a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

With the help of a new approach known to the scientific community as ecogenomics, specialist Terry C. Hazen, Ph.D, and his colleagues have carried out a detailed analysis of the microbial life currently thriving in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

This allowed the researchers to show how, following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, certain bacteria that inhabit the Gulf of Mexico and which are known to feed on oil experienced a boom in their population.

According to the official website for the American Chemical Society, these bacteria proved surprisingly efficient in breaking down the oil and consuming it.

It is Terry C. Hazen's belief that both this sudden increase in the local population of oil-eating bacteria and the their efficiency in tackling the spill stand as proof that, contrary to mainstream assumptions, the Gulf of Mexico and other ecosystems of its kind are nothing if not capable of recovering from oil spills.

“The Deepwater Horizon oil provided a new source of nutrients in the deepest waters. With more food present in the water, there was a population explosion among those bacteria already adapted to using oil as a food source,” Terry C. Hazen, Ph.D summed up the findings of his and his colleagues' investigation.

“It was surprising how fast they consumed the oil. In some locations, it took only one day for them to reduce a gallon of oil to a half gallon. In others, the half-life for a given quantity of spilled oil was 6 days,” he further added.

Given the behavior of these microorganisms when faced with significant amounts of oil, Terry C. Hazen and his fellow researchers believe that measures such as adding dispersants and nutrients meant to encourage the growth of such bacteria would only negatively affect the Gulf of Mexico's ability to cleanse itself.

As said specialist puts it, “It [the research] shows that we may not need the kinds of heroic measures proposed after the Deepwater Horizon spill, like adding nutrients to speed up the growth of bacteria that breakdown oil, or using genetically engineered bacteria.”