FALLOUT: Researchers find “layer of oil buried about 3 cm deep” 30 km from wellhead; Bottom-burrowing creatures appeared to be “NUKED”, only things alive are the microbes

Oxygen "sags" and oil "snow storm" near spill site, Nature.com (The Great Beyond), September 07, 2010

[A]cademic researchers at sea have some dismal news. Biogeochemist Samantha Joye, from the University of Georgia in Athens, and her colleagues have found a layer of oil buried about three centimetres deep in a canyon some 30 kilometres from the wellhead. They also spotted dead worms, shrimp and other bottom-dwelling organisms in the same region.

“It looks like the benthic infauna [bottom burrowing creatures] were nuked by the oil snow storm,” she adds. “The only things alive in the oil impacted sediments are the microbial flora, and they seem to be happy with all the carbon to eat.”

Read the report here.