An Ocean Oil Spill Science Legacy

There have been two large scale oil spills over the past 4 decades in the Gulf of Mexico. The Ixtoc I spill in 1979 off the coast of Carmen, Mexico released 3.5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf, and the Macondo wellhead blowout off the coast of Louisiana, USA in 2010 released 3.19 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.

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Tingting Tang presents her research on whale population recovery at the 2016 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem conference in Tampa. (Photo provided by Tang)

Grad Student Tang Studies Whale Populations’ Oil Spill Recovery

When disaster strikes, responders look at how creatures in its path may be impacted to mitigate damage. Tingting Tang takes the process one step further, using mathematical models to predict how long recovery may take. The creatures that Tingting focuses on are some of the Gulf of Mexico’s largest predators and most charismatic animals, beaked and sperm whales.

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Drifters, Bamboo Plates Reveal Gulf Of Mexico Current Insights

In 2012, we watched as scientists with the Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE), funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI), launched hundreds of GPS-equipped drifters into the Gulf to track their movements. This was part of the Grand Lagrangian deployment, or GLAD, which was the largest of its kind ever at the time.

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