2010-06-08 Gulf oil leak causing upheaval in marine ecology

2010-06-08 Phil McKenna NewScientist \Deepwater Horizon oil spill http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19021-gulf-oil-leak-causing-upheaval-in-marine-ecology.html Gulf oil leak causing upheaval in marine ecology Gulf oil leak causing upheaval in marine ecology  As oil continues to leak out of the collapsed Deepwater Horizon well head, researchers are beginning to collect data on how it is changing life in the Gulf of Mexico.

Earlier today, Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia in Athens spoke of what they are finding. She said that methane concentrations in a giant underwater plume emanating from the well head are as much as 10,000 times higher than background levels. The consequences of this for life in the gulf are unknown.

Joye was one of the first scientists to discover deep-water plumes emanating from the ongoing spill and recently returned from a two-week research expedition on board the research vessel F. G. Walton Smith. "It's an infusion of oil and gas that has never been seen before, certainly not in human history," she said earlier today, as she described her preliminary findings.

&ldquo;...methane concentrations in a giant underwater plume emanating from the well head are as much as 10,000 times higher than background levels.&rdquo;   