UGA SCIENTIST: TOO LITTLE RESEARCH ON GASES AT OIL DISASTER SITE IN GULF, Sunday Paper, June 29, 2010:
Too few research resources, rapidly depleting oxygen, high levels of gas and a looming future as the next Black Sea. Those are some of the highlights of a teleconference today about conditions in the area of the Deep Horizon oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. ...
To eat up all the gases, the microbes would need nearly five times as much oxygen as there presently is in the water. ...
Water bereft of oxygen is called anoxic. What's an example of an anoxic body of water? "The bottom of the Black Sea," says Joye.
She points out that when oil and gas come out of the pipe at BP's well head and rise to the surface, when the gases are burned off, the substance left behind coagulates and sinks to the bottom. ... "I don't think we have a handle at all on the material that is sedimentating," says Joye.
