Exclusive: Submarine Dive Finds Oil, Dead Sea Life at Bottom of Gulf of Mexico

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

A mile below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico, there is little sign of life.

"It looks like everything's dead," University of Georgia professor Samantha Joye said.

In an exclusive trip aboard the U.S. Navy's deep-ocean research submersible Alvin, ABC News was given the chance to observe the impact of this summer's massive oil spill that most will never see.

The ocean floor appears to be littered with twigs, but Joye points out that they are actually dead worms and that Alvin is sitting on top of what is considered an 80-square mile kill zone.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-submarine-dive-finds-oil-dead-sea-life/story?id=12305709

[Downwinder]

1. And thats only the half of it, if the government is to be believed.

[DeadEyeDyck]

27. Got to admit

This never turned out as bad as we all thought it would. As a Floridian, I was waiting for ALL our beaches to turn dead and black. We heard it would make its way up through Ga., SC and beyond.
Not that this isn't horrible but we did get off easily compared to Alaska.

[AlbertCat]

54. I was waiting for ALL our beaches to turn dead and black.

Just wait....

[ThomThom]

68. just wait

they should still have to clean it up
good luck
dead zones

[glitch]

74. Wo, your post count says 666 deadeyedick.

Not that that means anything...:evilgrin:

As the above poster says, wait for it. The repercussions may not be so much blackened beaches as silent springs.

[Kalun D]

95. It's way worse than Alaska

due to the volume, it just didn't hit the shore because of the dispersants, it sank and is killing everything, you just don't see it on the shore.

[obxhead]

61. Which means it's likely only the 1/10th of it

since it's the government we have to go by.

[leveymg]

2. Sad

[DeSwiss]

3. K&R

Sickening.

[rhett o rick]

4. Well I am certainly glad our President is going to hold BP accountable. What's that? He's going to

let them off the hook? NO NO, you must be thinking of the R-con's. Oh..........shit. We are fucking doomed.

[Oceansaway]

5. K&R...n/t

[high density]

6. Exclusive: Sky blue, stove hot

Stay tune for the footage at 10.

[NeoConsSuck]

7. This can't be

I thought the oil was eaten by microbes? Could Chavez have done this?

[BrklynLiberal]

8. but..but...didn't all the govt "experts" say there was no oil at the bottom of the Gulf???

:crazy: :wtf:

[social_critic]

24. I don't think they did say that

But you know how it is, there are ways to smear people, and this is one of them.

[molly77]

46. The same govt. that is telling US we can eat the fish coming out

of that water is hunting down Julian Assange. HMMMMMM

[Octafish]

9. Who could have known?

[druidity33]

11. you know

it sure looks like Laura and Condi have never handled a shovel in their lives. Dick, however, seems to be an old hand with that tool. Wonder what he's been burying...

;)

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pipoman]

35. snick-

[Laelth]

47. Actually, Laura is the only one holding the tool correctly. Interesting. n/t

-Laelth

[druidity33]

52. not really...

it's a Garden shovel, so it's not meant for real digging. But the overhand hold she's using is absurd. Small shovels need the heel of a hand to get a full heap of material, and the tip in would be real awkward with that grip...

:shrug:

[Laelth]

78. I've done a lot of shoveling. I always use that overhand grip.

You have to push down on the back end to balance the dirt weighing down the blade.

But, perhaps I'm wierd.

-Laelth

[liberation]

20. Wow... besides Condi's obvious lack of acquitance with manual labor....

... Barbara Bush's has that perma "joker grin" in her face that only overexposure to Xanax brings. Her eyes tell it all: that lady. is. just. not. there.

[jmowreader]

26. You mean Laura Bush, right?

Barbara is the Bush who modeled for the Quaker Oats box.

[liberation]

29. Yeah... that one.

I guess my brain just tried to forget the names of these assholes. Trying to cope with the trauma I guess....

[pansypoo53219]

33. lauWa

nt

[Kermitt Gribble]

51. LMAO!!! n/t

[peacetalksforall]

50. Condi does physical labor - she pulls her boots on and shopping can be hard work.

[pipoman]

34. Don't forget...

[sofa king]

58. So they really were shoveling poo to us all that time.

[louis-t]

72. God, they look like a bunch of zombies.

Photoshopped?

[Octafish]

99. Real as real is real.

They are a bunch of zombies, busy burying the truth.

[Bozita]

10. Is it time yet for Joe Barton to apologize to BP again?

I'm sure BP execs are feeling down in the dumps since hearing this news and would probably be cheered up by another apology.

[geckosfeet]

13. I could have told them that without using a submarine.

[Citizen Worker]

14. We must look forward not backward and for that reason all costs of the clean up and restoration will

be borne by US taxpayers. Now, let's move on.

[Odin2005]

15. But Rush told me the oil was all gone!!!

[KoKo]

16. BP is DEAD...Obama Appointed "The Fixer-Ken Feinberg" to Clean It Up!

Google, "Ken Feinberg, Fixer"...and read and weep over his history. Not much attention here on DU about what the AFTERMATH of BP is and FIXER FEINBERG and PAYMENTS to IMPOVERISHED SHRIMPERS for SILENCE by BP...but WTF?

Obama is OUR PRESIDENT...and he wouldn't do "bad" to "Gulf Folks" just like BUSH...WOULD HE? OH NO! OH NO!

[social_critic]

17. OK, so that's a 9 by 9 mile area, right?

Doesn't look that bad to me if they only bombed a 9 x 9 mile area in 5000 feet of water. When it happened, I thought it would poison a lot more than that. And I remember people telling scary stories about the oil going all the way to Miami.

I got the impression most of these news shows are trying to create a boogie man. It's a distraction, they should focus more on explaining why they're trying to shaft us with Social Security, or what's really happening in iraq and Afghanistan, where it sure looks to me like we're losing.

[boppers]

21. 9 by 9 total kill zone.

Outside of that, there's a larger 90% kill zone....
Outside of that, there's an even larger 80% kill zone....

They're still trying to figure out big this whole thing really is, estimates of still damaged areas have gone as high as 87,000 sq mi, which was the area closed off to fishing.

[truedelphi]

28. Yep it is all about semantics.

It's all abut "killing the messenger," and about semantics.

[awoke_in_2003]

30. +1000...

you and I disagree on a lot, but you always seem to put a lot of thought into your posts.

[boppers]

31. I often learn a lot from those who I disagree with.

Echo chambers are hard to learn in. :)

:hi:

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[boppers]

39. Some folks bring more to the discussion than others, of course.

I have a few few magical keywords that often I use to determine whether or not a response is worth reading or responding to... "banksters", "corporatist", "golpista", "oligarch" and the lot. Mostly terms indicating a broad brush, or stereotyping, mentality.

[wordpix]

57. x1000

[caseymoz]

25. Do you know how long it will take to survey the whole region?

They described how difficult it was to get this sub, Alvin, to that location. Does it sound like they've had time to look at anymore than a 9x9 area, yet?

No, reality TV is a distraction. Glen Beck is a distraction. This is a real disaster, and it's not going to turn joyful the more we look.

[democrank]

18. Everything is dead?

That can`t be. I trust our leaders who said the oil just disappeared, the sun came out again and normal-looking shrimp were aplenty. Plus, just the other day I saw another purple unicorn.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

19. Damn

:( :mad:

[Faygo Kid]

22. Heartbroken here.

We are screwed in every way. I am so sorry, those Post-Millenials.

[AngryAmish]

23. There is water on the bottom of the ocean

Under the water, carrying the water

[Imajika]

32. I remember when people on DU were saying the Gulf would die...

...absolutely nothing like that happened.

The Gulf is alive and well. All that ridiculous exaggeration about the Gulf being a dead sea was incredibly silly. So many DU posters specialize in paranoid exaggeration.

[CreekDog]

65. What's your point? How healthy is the Gulf now?

give it a grade in the area described and at 20 miles away and 50 miles away.

:shrug:

[AlabamaLibrul]

92. Have you visited from Virginia lately?

Dead sea is hyperbole, but it's ugly as hell down here. The beach towns are ghost towns and there is still oil.

[LanternWaste]

109. Whilst still others appear to specialize

"So many DU posters specialize in paranoid exaggeration..."

Whilst still others appear to specialize in implications of self-validation and aggrandizement at the expense of others.

[OrwellwasRight]

113. Atr least we don't specialize in corporate apologism. nt

[ronnie624]

37. Nonsense.

All of the oil vanished into thin air, remember?

[Imagevision]

38. Obama's crew told the scientists to stop continuing to reporting more oil being found

[StarsInHerHair]

40. why am I not surprised?

nt

[GSLevel9]

41. I just have to say it... DRILL BABY DRILL!!!!!!!!!!! nt

[sandyj999]

42. More Nature Destroyed for the Almighty Dollar. God I hate this! n/t

[fasttense]

43. It's not so bad....except for the 11 dead men.

It's not so bad except this one small area is the only area that has been explored yet.

It's not so bad except for the dead and dying shrimp, oysters, birds, dolphins, turtels......

It's not so bad except that BP and the federal government partnered up to hide most of the damage just like the good little fascist state that we are.

I think BP should be allowed to spill in the Gulf any time they feel like it. Drill BP drill :sarcasm:

Just ignore the death around you.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

44. This is an informative link to the EDF.

It explains just how this will continue to work its' way through the food chain and that it is going to take years to determine the actual damage to the GOM and the plants and animals that are and will be affected. This is not even close to being over.

http://www.edf.org/documents/11317_Gulf_oil_spill_infographic_2010.pdf

More info: http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?contentID=11305


This is an ongoing disaster that is the result of criminal activities by BP, Halliburton, Transocean and others. This has nothing to do with wanting President Obama to fail. The "facts" that we heard from day one of this debacle have been inconsistent to say the least. Even some people here insisted that this was much ado about nothing.

We are still in the infancy of investigating just how severe the damage is going to be from this crime. Like it or not, this happened while Pres. Obama is in office and there are a lot of doubts about how well this has been handled by all concerned.

[fasttense]

45. Well put. n/t

[lunatica]

48. I'm sure they're keeping the truth about the Gulf a secret for National Security reasons

It's good to have a government that doesn't scare us with facts we really don't need to know. What good would it do? There are things we don't need to know.

[peacetalksforall]

49. BP killed BofW. Make that BP Halliburton, and all their contractors,

political friends, media friends, competitor oil friends and especially their suppliers and pilots and owners of all the planes ...... killed a Body of Water - the great Gult also with the help of the COAST GUARD who lied for them and LOCAL POLICE who wouldn't let photographers and journalists in.

The only entity missing was Blackwater. Blackwater is probably not into birds and fish, turtles and whales. And the dolphins. Or the krill. Or the coral. Nada.

Thanks to BP, the people on land will be also be dying early.

How's the seafood business where you live. How's the tourist business where you live? How's that employment line - a little long?

Yes, bitter disrespect for arrogance and greed.

And don't forget - they are the perfect candidate for not leaving any profits in U.S. banks for very long.

[Paper Roses]

63. Blackwater, or whatever they call themselves now are probably

training the dolphins to swim toward targets with bombs taped to their bodies. Blackwater, with it's mission of death is beyond my comprehension.

I guess a lot of it beyond me now.

I used to think live was a pleasure, I now feel it is one worry after another.

[peacetalksforall]

94. I;m not handling it well and I don't want to pretend or delude myself.

Think horizontal line - above is all the gold, belowe are the serfs in the mud. Everything makes so much more sense.

The DLC was with the Republicans all this time and we pretended that nothing was wrong - that they had some winning strategy for winning elections that they were expert at. Their advice - Don't worry. Be happy. And don't be concerned if we appear silly and whimsical and laugh at the jokes the host used to make a dig on that tv show. Or that we all voted for the Patriot Act. e t c e t c e t c

[Creative]

53. So...I don't spend much time 5,280 feet below the surface.

[CreekDog]

66. your food's food does

:eyes:

but take pride in your ignorance. it's preserved for posterity now.

[Creative]

69. Oil is continually leaking from the bottom of the ocean.

The oil from the oil rig was on the surface. Even if this is true (and I doubt it is) it is nothing to be concerned about.

[CreekDog]

70. i was curious what your next right wing soundbite would be

to the poster who yawns at waterboarding but thinks they should reduce the number of pages in the tax code.

have you posted a liberal opinion here ever?

[CreekDog]

71. there is not a shred of science in your statements --in case anyone is comforted by them

why is it of little concern to you? you basically say because you say so.

[Creative]

76. Actually, it's called physics--oil is lighter than water. Thus, if there is oil

on the bottom of the gulf, we must conclude that it did not come from the rig.

[CreekDog]

79. again...your oversimplification is not only incorrect, it has a right wing spin to it

"Sedimentation/Sinking: Some heavy refined products have densities greater than one and so will sink in fresh or brackish water. However sea water has a density of approximately 1.025 and very few crudes are dense enough or weather sufficiently, so that their residues will sink in the marine environment. Sinking usually occurs due to the adhesion of particles of sediment or organic matter to the oil. Shallow waters are often laden with suspended solids providing favourable conditions for sedimentation. Oil stranded on sandy shorelines often becomes mixed with sand and other sediments. If this mixture is subsequently washed off the beach back into the sea it may then sink. In addition, if the oil catches fire after it has been spilled, the residues that sometimes form can be sufficiently dense to sink."

http://oils.gpa.unep.org/facts/fate.htm

[Creative]

82. Look, this spill was no doubt a catastrophe; however, it appears that the long

term impact will be far less severe than was originally thought. That is a good thing.

At this point, there is not much else that can be done with regard to decontamination process.

Therefore, in my view, the focus should be on preventing something like this from happening again and learning from the mistakes that were made during the initial response. This type of thing does not happen often, but when it does, we need to have a predetermined course of action that will minimize the spread of the oil and hasten the decontamination process.

[CreekDog]

84. how will we have that when you oppose Federal Government action

when you insist on cutting the federal workforce who would be making sure such plans are made?

and why the change of heart when through numerous posts you stated first that:

1) you don't live down there so what's the big whoop
2) oil floats so that's not BP oil

i applaud your newfound concern and right now i am clapping with my other hand.

[Creative]

87. It's really quite simple, this should be the responsibility of the companies

that operate oil rigs, not the federal government.

[CreekDog]

88. yes and when they don't act responsibly then what?

the tooth fairy comes in and...? :crazy:

i'm sick of your Ayn Rand BS.

at least you aren't concealing it.

[Creative]

90. Again, it' very simple. If they don't act responsibly,

they should not be allowed to operate oil rigs.

Can't you do anything without the help of your big brother?

[CreekDog]

93. who should decide they aren't acting responsibly?

And who has the authority to stop them from operating oil rugs as you said should be done?

Jiminy Cricket?

[Creative]

101. Well, I suppose it could be Jiminy Cricket Testing and Inspection, Inc; however,

that sound more like a chimney cleaning service than an oil rig certification agency.

Seriously, a testing and inspection commission should be formed and they should take a hard look at what went wrong and re-establish the standards by which oil rigs operate. Those who operate oil rigs would then have to hire a someone to test and inspect their rigs to ensure that these standards are met prior to certifying them to operate.

Obviously, legislation would have to be enacted to put all of this in motion; however; the certifying entity would be liable for any damages caused by a rig that they wrongly certified. This sort of thing is common in the realm of engineering, where engineers are responsible for the things that the design and there is no reason the same thing cannot apply to oil rigs.

Finally, all of this should be paid for by the people who operate the oil rigs.

[OrwellwasRight]

86. What are you even talking about?

Do you realize that the ocean is an ecology? It needs all the life, whether animal, plant, algae, or other, to stay healthy and to maintain all the life at each of the other levels. If all the worms are dead, then all of whatever eats those worms are dead and so on and so on.

[Creative]

89. Do you realize that ecologies have the ability to renew themselves?

Like I said before, there is not much else that can be done in the realm of decon.

[OrwellwasRight]

91. from natural disasters yes, but

not always from manmade ones.

that is why many coral reefs are in danger -- they are not all coming back as you posit

Ever hear of the dodo bird or the passenger pigeon? both extinct due to over killing by humans

Prince William Sound, site of the Exxon Valdez spill = still not fully recovered

many species die because we destroy their habitats; species become extinct every day

if you don't care about the environment or think we should be responsible for man's actions to harm it, how exactly are you a Democrat?

[Creative]

103. The reason the dodo bird became extinct is due to the fact that it did not evolve.

Ever hear of evolution?

On the other hand, the passenger pigeon was hunted to extinction. Unfortunately, females only laid one egg per year, so they could not reproduce fast enough to keep with the demand for their meat. But, we still have chickens.

I think most people do care about the environment. However, some of us also realize that humans are part of nature too.

[CreekDog]

104. "Humans are part of nature too" (to lecture Demorats this way is a Republican tactic)

not sure if you knew that this is almost an exclusively Republican straw man tactic.

[Creative]

107. I don't know about that, but we are here and although

we have created many problems, we have also created many solutions. Some of these problems are actually a result of the speed of our evolution, which has increased exponentially when compared to other species. However, I also believe that the speed at which we are evolving will one day lead us to the "fixes" for the environment.

[OrwellwasRight]

105. Yes, one that is refusing to evolve its lifestyle

and will eventually be endangered due to exactly that attitude

[Creative]

108. Actually, one of the problems other species face is the fact that they

are not evolving as fast as humans.

[OrwellwasRight]

114. What is your evidence that humans are evolving?

Destroying our environment is not evolution. Genetic change in our species to better adapt is.

[NickB79]

110. "We still have chickens"

Hooray! We can kill whatever bird species we want, so long as we still have chickens! Because, as we all know, a pigeon is a chicken is an eagle is an ostrich.

What's next, don't worry about tigers going extinct because we have some tabby cats running around here? Forget about the bison because there's a herd of cattle on the farm down the road?

[Creative]

115. If species cannot adapt to it's environment it will perish. It has been that way

from the beginning. That is the "survival of the fittest" nature of evolution.

Surely, you are not suggesting that we should have man-eating lions and tigers, roaming the countryside in numbers that would make it unsafe for humans. Are you?

[NickB79]

117. So the new definition of environment is the artificial landscape created by man?

The reason we have chickens is that we molded their evolution to provide us with a ready food supply. They adapted by being domesticated.

If that's where we're setting the standards, by the end of this century we'll have cows, pigs, goats, chickens, and not much else to call "nature".


"Surely, you are not suggesting that we should have man-eating lions and tigers, roaming the countryside in numbers that would make it unsafe for humans. Are you?"

Nice strawman there :eyes:

[NickB79]

111. The reason the dodo is extinct is because it was already perfectly evolved for it's environment

It lost it's ability to fly because it's ancestors landed on an island rich in food with no natural predators. Through evolution they lost unnecessary features such as wings capable of flight, and grew larger and stronger legs.

Then, humans introduced non-native predators such as dogs and rats, and also hunting them themselves. The birds never had a chance to evolve defenses against this assault, because the slaughter happened in less than 200 years, a blink of an eye geologically.

As for the passenger pigeons, they died more from deforestation than from hunting. We wiped out the base of their food chain (forests rich in nut and fruit-bearing trees) and they starved. Quite similar to what we just did in the Gulf: destroy the bottom of the food chain and watch the ripples spread throughout the ecosystem.

[OrwellwasRight]

112. Don't confuse our Creative friend with facts.

He wants to believe that anything humans do is justified because it counts as our "evolution." Whatevs.

[Creative]

116. You are correct...I should have said "could" not adapt quickly enough...

There are still many chapters to be written with respect to the Gulf spill. However, based on the progress at Prince William Sound, it is clear that your doom and gloom projections of apocalypse are surely overstated.

[CreekDog]

97. not if you change the pH of the ocean --which has been done

nice try though.

[zappaman]

80. you can't be for real?

you really think it's no big deal?
really?

[CreekDog]

81. that poster refers to Democratic socialism by quoting Goebbels

in a discussion about Bernie Sanders.

i don't doubt their sincerity, but i do doubt their credibility.

[Creative]

83. Actually, that was in a thread about Fidel Castro, not Bernie Sanders

But don't let the truth stand in the way of posting whatever it is that you want to post.

:hi:

[CreekDog]

85. .

.

:rofl:

[xchrom]

55. recommend

[lonestarnot]

56. 80 sq mi kill zone.

[CreekDog]

67. Several posters here think 80 square miles is not so bad

[Wednesdays]

73. Indeed, terrible as it was, Hiroshima was much smaller than 9x9 miles.

The outer ring on the map is 11,000 feet from ground zero, so the radius of destruction was about 2 miles.

[Vinca]

59. Out of sight, out of mind . . . apparently.

This story has completely disappeared from the "news." Until this story anyway.

[Shining Jack]

60. That's so depresing...

Although I can't say that I'm really surprised. :(

[Generic Other]

62. The people of the Gulf have been telling us all along that thingts are bad

so we should not be surprised to discover things are bad.

[Faygo Kid]

64. Only one solution at hand: More tax cuts for the rich.

That's the USA we live in now.

Get used to it, and do what you can to survive. Unlike marine life in the Gulf.

[MBS]

75. heartbreaking.

[live love laugh]

77. Duh.

Sorry about the sarcasm but who didn't know this?

[CreekDog]

96. the news isn't that there's damage, but the detailed reporting of this damage

the level of detail is not common knowledge by any means.

[goforit]

98. Gee who wud uh thunk it?

[Execlib]

100. The truth will be know, and it will unfold...

...when humans are extinct by their own hand.

[Downwinder]

102. Come see the NEW La Brea Tar Pits! The GOM Tar Pits!

[Imagevision]

106. Obama allows BP to run the National Guard - brilliant for EZ cove-rup