The explosion on April 20, 2010 at Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in oil and gas rising to the surface and the oil coming ashore in many parts of the Gulf, and in the dispersment of an oil plume 4,000 feet below the surface of the water.  Despite spanning more than 600 feet in the water column and extending more than 10 miles from the wellhead, the dispersed oil plume was gone within weeks after the wellhead was capped � degraded and diluted to undetectable levels.  Furthermore, this degradation took place without significant oxygen depletion.  Ecogenomics enabled discovery of new and unclassified species of oil-eating bacteria that apparently lives in the deep Gulf where oil seeps are common.   The results provide information about the key players and processes involved in degradation of oil, with and without COREXIT, in different impacted environments in The Gulf of Mexico.

Deepwater Horizon oil spill: A systems biology approach to an ecological disaster

245th National Meeting (2013)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.