Community | November 05, 2010 | 61 comments

Scientists find damage to coral near BP well

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill_corals

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JanforGore
For the first time, federal scientists have found damage to deep sea coral and other marine life on the ocean floor several miles from the blown-out BP well — a strong indication that damage from the spill could be significantly greater than officials had previously acknowledged.

Tests are needed to verify that the coral died from oil that spewed into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, but the chief scientist who led the government-funded expedition said Friday he was convinced it was related.

"What we have at this point is the smoking gun," said Charles Fisher, a biologist with Penn State University who led the expedition aboard the Ronald Brown, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel.

"There is an abundance of circumstantial data that suggests that what happened is related to the recent oil spill," Fisher said.

For the government, the findings were a departure from earlier statements. Until now, federal teams have painted relatively rosy pictures about the spill's effect on the sea and its ecosystem, saying they had not found any damage on the ocean floor.

In early August, a federal report said that nearly 70 percent of the 170 million gallons of oil that gushed from the well into the sea had dissolved naturally, or was burned, skimmed, dispersed or captured, with almost nothing left to see — at least on top of the water. The report was blasted by scientists.

Most of the Gulf's bottom is muddy, but coral colonies that pop up every once in a while are vital oases for marine life in the chilly ocean depths.

Coral is essential to the Gulf because it provides a habitat for fish and other organisms such as snails and crabs, making any large-scale death of coral a problem for many species. It might need years, or even decades, to grow back.

"It's cold on the bottom, and things don't grow as quickly," said Paul Montagna, a marine scientist at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. He was not on the expedition.

Montagna said the affected area is so large, and scientists' ability to explore it with underwater robots so limited that "we'll never be able to see everything that happened down there."

Using a robot called Jason II, researchers found the dead coral in an area measuring up to 130 feet by 50 feet, about 4,600 feet under the surface.

"These kinds of coral are normally beautiful, brightly colored," Fisher said. "What you saw was a field of brown corals with exposed skeleton — white, brittle stars tightly wound around the skeleton, not waving their arms like they usually do."

Fisher described the soft and hard coral they found seven miles southwest of the well as an underwater graveyard. He said oil probably passed over the coral and killed it.

The coral has "been dying for months," he said. "What we are looking at is a combination of dead gooey tissues and sediment. Gunk is a good word for what it is."

Eric Cordes, a Temple University marine scientist on the expedition, said his colleagues have identified about 25 other sites in the vicinity of the well where similar damage may have occurred. An expedition is planned for next month to explore those sites.

When coral is threatened, its first reaction is to release large amounts of mucus, "and anything drifting by in the water column would get bound up in this mucus," Cordes said. "And that is what this (brown) substance would be: A variety of things bound up in the mucus."

About 90 percent of the large coral was damaged, Fisher said.

The expedition was funded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mission was part of a four-year study of the Gulf's depths, but it was expanded this year to look at oil spill damage.

In a statement released Thursday night, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said the expedition underscored that the damage to marine life from the oil spill is "not easily seen." She added that more research was needed to gain a "comprehensive understanding of impacts to the Gulf."

"Given the toxic nature of oil, and the unprecedented amount of oil spilled, it would be surprising if we did not find damage," she said.

NOAA did not provide any officials or scientists of its own who went on the expedition. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said its researcher on the expedition was unavailable.

Cordes said that the expedition did not find dramatic visual evidence of coral damage in other sites north of the well. But he said it was premature to say coral elsewhere in the Gulf was not damaged.

The new findings, though, could mean long-term trouble for the coral southwest of the well, where computer models and research cruises mapped much of the deepwater oil.

Referring to one type of coral known as "gorgonians," Cordes said he had never seen them "come back from having lost so much tissue. It would have to be re-colonization from scratch."

___

On The Web:

Photos of the dead coral: http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/photos/research-photos/biology/fisher-photos/

More about the NOAA expedition: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/10lophelia/welcome.html
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61 comments // Scientists find damage to coral near BP well

  • Wetdog
    • +1
      Wetdog  

    • Has anyone noticed how CNN suddenly became totally silent about the BP spill?

      After 4 months of BP 24/7---all of a sudden not one single word. No pictures of salt marshes. No reports from fishermen telling what they are catching. No reports from biologists(NOW that reports from biologists would really matter). No pictures or reports on salt marshes or beaches.

      And government officials telling us that the oil "just disappeared".

      It all looks like a HUGE cover-up to me.

      Both the government, BP, and all other oil companies have a huge amount of money, and power at stake in covering up the outcome of this spill.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Wetdog:

      Are you saying your sensitive dog nose smells a rat? Hmm. So that means all the reporters messing up and diverting attention away to their antics is also a part of it. It all makes sense now because the spammer posting ties right in.

      Current isn't stopping the spamming so Current staff must be in on it too. Wow. I hope you get some kinda MEDAL for breaking all this out into the open where it belongs.

      And you did it without the Sienna!

      Hey! Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity also switched gears. This must be the biggest coverup-in-progress in American History, so tell me. Why did Bush pop his face back into our reality at the same time?

      I'll tell ya what I think. They've seen something BIG happening out in the Cosmos, real big. All their combined brain power was suddenly drawn away to concoct a new lie. That explains why they didn't need Olbermann.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Gravity_Man:

      Is the condition so critical they needed Bush's help? Darn it, this is starting to look like on the level of a warp core breach~explosion. Okay, so what's the worst thing that can happen? Planet Killer?

      Asteroid! Well, don't anybody look up. It'll only take a couple seconds. Learn to whistle. Concentrate on how much you love/hate George Bush. Do a reverse engineered rain dance quick. Aww, wait a minute.

      That isn't right. The worst thing that could happen is the Hadron Collider. Go back to what you were doing. That was declared a long time ago to be completely safe.

    • 1 year ago
  • doxu12
  • Incredulous
    • +1
      Incredulous  
    • doxu12:

      out of control spam, getting worse, not better
      can't believe you are incapable of controlling this
      Obviously, we can all see WHEN it is occurring,

      funny, this doesn't happen on other news sites....

    • 1 year ago
  • uhvggh
  • Incredulous
    • 0
      Incredulous  
    • uhvggh:

      out of control spam, getting worse, not better
      can't believe you are incapable of controlling this
      Obviously, we can all see WHEN it is occurring,

      funny, this doesn't happen on other news sites....

    • 1 year ago
  • dzgfvdgf
  • Incredulous
    • 0
      Incredulous  
    • dzgfvdgf:

      out of control spam, getting worse, not better
      can't believe you are incapable of controlling this
      Obviously, we can all see WHEN it is occurring,

      funny, this doesn't happen on other news sites....

    • 1 year ago
  • dszfgfh
  • Incredulous
    • 0
      Incredulous  
    • dszfgfh:

      out of control spam, getting worse, not better
      can't believe you are incapable of controlling this
      Obviously, we can all see WHEN it is occurring,

      funny, this doesn't happen on other news sites....

    • 1 year ago
  • mxi57
    • mxi57 [removed]  
    • This comment was removed as a violation of community guidelines.
  • Incredulous
    • 0
      Incredulous  
    • mxi57:

      out of control spam, getting worse, not better
      can't believe you are incapable of controlling this
      Obviously, we can all see WHEN it is occurring,

      funny, this doesn't happen on other news sites....

    • 1 year ago
  • mikiy
    • mikiy [removed]  
    • This comment was removed as a violation of community guidelines.
  • Incredulous
    • 0
      Incredulous  
    • mikiy:

      out of control spam, getting worse, not better
      can't believe you are incapable of controlling this
      Obviously, we can all see WHEN it is occurring,

      funny, this doesn't happen on other news sites....

    • 1 year ago
  • Debra_
    • 0
      Debra_  

    • This is the fair and non-biased part of the post.

      All the damage to the coral,; it takes thousands of years for it to grow back.

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • Debra_
  • Gravity_Man
    • -1
      Gravity_Man  
    • Debra_:

      I've never seen them, except on Sea Hunt, but that was in Black & White. I could've seen them in color but I never could stand Jacques Cousteau long enough to reach the bottom. Apparently they can survive asteroid impacts while dinosaurs can't, so they must be a hardier vegetable than carrots.

      If they can't stand light crude oil then why the heck are they growing roots down toward it? All British Petroleum did was speed up the process and save them some work.

      Let..... BP..... go..... {tears rolling down cheeks}

      Old Indian guy exits.

    • 1 year ago
  • bailey78
    • 0
      bailey78  

    • Well we can't say we didn't know this was going to happen. I mean you dump all that oil into the water and it has to settle some place. Now all we have to do is make sure BP cleans it up and does something to make it right. i can see divers down there cleaning it up at $250.00 an hour. i know quite a few divers that could use the money. how ever I'm sure BP will just kick some sand on it and say job done.

    • 1 year ago
  • oppressed1
    • +1
      oppressed1  

    • Jeez Jan who would have thought something as delicate as a coral reef would be damaged from a couple million gallons of oil.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +3
      JanforGore  
    • oppressed1:

      The people living in denial and those paid to live in denial. Just like dumping all of those millions of tons of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere over hundreds of years....

    • 1 year ago
  • H2O_4U
    • -1
      H2O_4U  

    • I think we are finally starting to see where this free market libertarian-fundamentalism is getting us. Polluted seas, polluted life, polluted coral.

    • 1 year ago
  • Buddha2112
  • addie340
    • -5
      addie340  

    • Problem solved Obama will send hundreds down to clean the coral with massive tv crews. As soon as the tv crews get the shots of people cleaning the coral they will all load up and go back home. Problem solved. Just like they did when they were suppose to clean the beaches. When the so called news stations were there they acted as if they were cleaning the beaches, soon as they left the cleaning stopped. Well they did manage to cover some of the oil with a few inches of sand to make it look like the beaches were clean. Obama and BP are one and the same. BP gave millions to the Obama campaign during the 2008 Presidential elections. Do you really think he is going to spank on of the big Democratic donors, I didn't think so. Everything is in good hands remember Obama said he was in charge of this spill from day ONE. Look at the great job he did. ( patting himself on the back ) The same job he has done for the American citizens. Impeach this jerk while the US still has a leg to stand on. Just like Al Gore he hasn't a clue, it's all about the money trail !!!!

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  

    • OK, now I can't reply to the spam posts. It tells me an "error" has occurred. Current, you are being hacked and spammed and just laying silent? What is going on here?

      So here's my reply to the latest spam post:

      Oh look, another OILY spammer.

    • 1 year ago
  • bailey78
  • JaneBond007
    • 0
      JaneBond007  

    • "I am still confused about this issue... how about digging deep to know about the contamination? I know that corals have roots and most of them are old enough to survived...

      New branches will grow and new weeds will born... new species of animones, sea turtles, crabs and many other types of sea life will transfer to that place once the place was freed from contamination... if the contamination is not strong to kill new sea life and the poison of the fuel and oils are vanished, then, Research and Study can be done to know what will be done.

      But for me, it is better to cut the weeds that had damages first rather than doing some arguments again.

    • 1 year ago
  • snanders
  • EthicalVegan
    • +1
      EthicalVegan  
    • snanders:

      And it's up to each of us, individually, to do our part by meeting with our congresspeople, writing letters to the press, holding gatherings to educate neighbors, and oh so much more.

    • 1 year ago
  • Lewis_Sandoval
  • EthicalVegan
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  
    • ThatCrazyLibertarian:

      This is truly heartbreaking. I look at pictures of this and cry. How can people not understand still just how destructive fossil fuels are to this planet and that it effects their lives? The sun is not just up there as a pretty light to look at! We haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what we could do with it's energy.

    • 1 year ago
  • ThatCrazyLibertarian
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  
    • ThatCrazyLibertarian:

      Yes, that is so true. Look at Alberta and how they go about making tarsands, the most dirty and toxic oil there is just to satisfy the addiction to the detriment of the pristine Boreal Forest and the species and people there. But we will see no progress on weaning off of it until collectively people can admit to the addiction, or it kills all of our ecosystems. Or until we have a market system that prices it fairly to where alternate energy sources will then have parity.

    • 1 year ago
  • CalPal
  • Gravity_Man
    • -1
      Gravity_Man  
    • JanforGore:

      Don't worry Jan. You and I both know they're already grooming some teen or pre-teen savant to fix everything. George Bush come slinking out from his self-imposed cone of silence is a dead giveaway for that move to come next.

      You watch Jan, just watch it happen. Bush didn't come out just to get a breath of fresh air. He's out here to take the bows, as a lead-in for an expected 2012 victory over the sleeping Democrats.

      God I love Chess.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  
    • Gravity_Man:

      Well he can't run and steal it again, but he could be setting it up to smooth over his war criminal image for his brother Jeb. I don't think they are finished either.... sad statement for this country if true.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • JanforGore:

      Very good point Jan! You nailed it for sure. Jeb is a stretch but GW DOES LUST after the History books. He wants his picture ON EVERY PAGE if he can swing it, and Jeb can swing by any accidental leftovers [which then he of course Big Brother George would also take credit for to make sure another couple of history book printings keeps his name].

      You'll agree with me if you take time to get inside Georgey Boy's head. hahahaha Maybe carry a Bible around a while to get the feel of God inside ya. Ahh Jan, the need to be worshipped gets woven down deep into your SOUL can ya feel it?

      You're looking at the Anti-Christ.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • JanforGore:

      Bush is just the cover of the book. They presume to be able to do what only Jesus can do. If they can't they would probably destroy the earth, because Jesus loves the earth and loves people. They'll eventually try.

      Trust in Jesus Jan. They intend to harm you.

    • 1 year ago
  • artemis6
  • JanforGore
  • artemis6
    • 0
      artemis6  
    • JanforGore:

      It is true , we will al be affected . It will travel the oceanic currents and the winds , and in the bodies of fish and foul . All I can see to do , at this point , is to buy my son as much time as possible , to grow healthy and strong , as our generation has , up to this point , failed too correct the obvious problem . So he may still have a fighting chance . Damn shame , though . We should have done better , by the children .

    • 1 year ago
  • Debra_
    • -15
      Debra_  

    • More politically motivated drivel from the usual suspects.

      You think Obama is just going to be able to go down there and jump in the gulf to clog up the hole?. He is black so all the oil will naturally soak into his skin right? racist sicko's.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +11
      JanforGore  
    • Debra_:

      There is NO POLITICS in this post. And from someone who typed here that Clarence Thomas was an "oreo" you have some big calzones inferring others are racist simply because they post an article about environmental damage done by BP. This is about an ECOCIDE that is destroying our web of life and BP and all who perpetuated it need to be accountable for it. Looks from all of your posts here this evening you are just looking for a fight. Look elsewhere.

    • 1 year ago
  • keithponder
  • Proud_Progressive
  • coxian_armada
  • Varex_Sythe
  • EthicalVegan
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • +7
      JanforGore  

    • Not surprising to some of us, but to others it will be because of the media blackout of it now. Which is why it needs to be kept in the public consciousness.

    • 1 year ago
  • Proud_Progressive
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  
    • Proud_Progressive:

      Well I talk to people in the process of my day and many I talk to about certain things they are not seeing on the Boob Tube ( especially regarding GMOS) show they do care. The problem is that once they know, even if they care they don't know what to do with that care. That is the disconnect we need to change.

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
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