Article from a geochemist on long term effects of the BP oil spill.

[eridani]

http://www.chromatographyonline.com/lcgc/Learning-from-the-Gulf-Oil-Spill/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/772709?topic=135

Was the impact of the oil spill greater or smaller than you had believed it to be?

White: Considering the magnitude of the oil spill and the fact that it occurred in the deep water, it seemed possible that deep-sea coral communities in the Gulf of Mexico might be impacted. During a 3-week research cruise in November 2010, coral communities>20 km from the Macondo well blowout were observed to be healthy, but impacted corals were observed closer to the Macondo well, at a distance of 11 km.

Can you say approximately how long, if at all, it can take a coral community to recover from such damage?

White: The impacted corals exhibited varying degrees of stress including bare skeleton, excess mucous production and covering by the brown floc material. One coral that had a light covering of floc in November appeared to have recovered when we returned in December. Other corals or parts of corals covered by floc died. We are continuing to document the health of corals at the impacted site so that we can determine their ability to rebound.

[Scuba]

1. Thanks for posting. The Gulf should be back to normal in a few millennia.