Scientists used passive acoustic monitoring during 2010-2013 to detect the presence of beaked whales in the Gulf of Mexico. These animals are difficult to study visually because they spend little time at the sea surface and are only present in offshore deep waters; they are rarely found on the continental shelf and near-shore waters.
Six years ago today, an explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and unleashed the largest oil spill in U.S. history. It also launched a massive scramble by scientists to understand the extent and impacts of the spill.
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon, a drilling rig off the Louisiana coast, blew up. The explosion killed 11 people, and the resulting oil spill, the largest in U.S. history, killed hundreds of thousands of animals and produced 65,000 square miles of oil slicks off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
It is with deep sadness that we share the news that Dr. Stan Kuczaj passed away on Thursday, April 14 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Elizabeth Robinson studies blue crab’s role in the northern Gulf of Mexico food web, looking closely at how Deepwater Horizon oil might have affected the natural predator-prey balance.
Communicating oil spill research is essential to improve society’s understanding about spills and their ability to respond to and mitigate them. The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) has been funding spill-related research since 2010.
Years ago, when my husband, Hal, and I first arrived as young filmmaking partners in Washington, D.C., the first person I met was the wife of a fellow filmmaker.
When the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded in 2010 releasing the largest oil spill in United States history, scientists from around the country came to the Gulf of Mexico to try to measure the impact of the environmental disaster.
There is a lot of action at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. A turbulent mixed layer of water and sediment particles known as the bottom boundary layer circulates counterclockwise across the seafloor, flowing against the water above.
The Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia (http://marsci.uga.edu) is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Associate to participate in a new Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative-funded study of the vertical upwelling of a hydrocarbon plume together with bottom boundary layer dispersal for a natural seep site.