STORIES FROM THE SEA
On November 8th, we sailed from Galveston Texas on board the R/V Atlantis which carried the Deep Submergence Vessel (DSV) ALVIN, t he ALVIN crew, the Ship’s crew, and 21 researchers from across the globe. This collaborative project involves scientists from the University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Florida State University, Harvard University, the University of Bremen (Germany), the University of Southern Denmark, and the University of Minnesota.
Sometimes, I get a feeling that the day is going to offer some surprises. This morning, I had a feeling. We’ve spent a lot of time in the Southwest quadrant over the past two weeks searching for oil and gas. We’ve seen mostly weak signals. The sediments at the sites we visited during that time were oxidized and did not contain a lot of gas or oil.
The R/V Oceanus will depart Gulfport at 12AM on August 21. The science party consists of microbiologists, isotope geochemists, chemical ecologists, physical oceanographers, geologists, and biogeochemists from the University of Georgia (UGA), Georgia Institute of Technology, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), the University of California Santa Barbara, the University of Maryland, and the University of Southern Mississippi. We'll be conducting joint operations with the R/V Cape Hatteras, which will house scientists from the University of Texas, UGA, and LDEO.
The Deepwater Horizon wellhead that tapped the Macondo reservoir was capped on 15 July 2010. After the venting of oil and gas into the Gulf waters was stopped, everyone felt a sense of relief. Multiple news outlets have reported that the surface oil has disappeared, for the most part. I read many reports that stated conclusively the oil had been either transferred to the atmosphere (via evaporation) or that it had been consumed by oil-eating microorganisms. Everyone’s reaction was, not surprisingly, ‘what a relief !!’. Should we be relieved? Is this disaster over?
