Research and recovery efforts linked to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill received a welcome boost on 15 November as part of a landmark settlement by the oil-and-gas giant BP plc. Read more
On Monday 5 December, the 350 or so attendees at the State of the Gulf of Mexico Summit in Houston were among the first to hear of a $50 million, three-year commitment from the US Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service for projects to improve water quality in the Gulf of Mexico.
The full catalogue of failures that led to the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and the subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have been laid out by a final US government report. Read more
Animal rescue teams and government agencies have rushed to Billings, Montana where they are assessing the damage from the Exxonmobil pipeline oil spill that occurred 2 July in the Yellowstone River.
Earlier this week US Senator David Vitter released his hold on a senior administration official after his demands regarding offshore drilling were met, but the Louisiana Republican has no intention of lifting a similar hold on the White House’s nominee for the position of chief scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Read more
Since last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, microbiologists have been working to understand how the microbial environment responds to and ultimately breaks down oil from a spill. (For more information, see our feature on the topic.) This weekend at the 111th general meeting of The American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans – the nearest large city to the spill site – an entire session was dedicated to the newest results from spill studies. Read more
BP’s troubled attempt to link up with Russian oil giant Rosneft to drill in Arctic waters appears to be scuppered today. Read more
BP’s efforts to clean beaches soiled by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in some cases spread the oil to previously clean sand. Its method of finding pockets of buried oil and excavating and sieving sand were unproven and of questionable effectiveness, researchers who observed the efforts say in a new paper. Read more
The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI) research board today announced its long-awaited request for proposals from researchers who want to use British Petroleum (BP) funds to study the effects of last year’s Gulf Coast Oil spill. Interdisciplinary teams of researchers may now apply for funding to conduct studies that address one of five themes. Read more
In the early months of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, scant attention was paid to the huge volume of gases that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, along with the estimated 62,500-68,000 barrels of oil per day.
Recent comments on this blog
Experiments reveal that crabs and lobsters feel pain
US research ethics agency upholds decision on informed consent
Chemistry credit disputes under the spotlight
Chemistry credit disputes under the spotlight
Contamination created controversial ‘acid-induced’ stem cells