Researchers have been going on dives into the Gulf of Mexico utilizing a mini-sub to take a gander at how the ecosystems are dealing with the recent BP oil fiasco.
It may seem like the Gulf of Mexico is a muddled mass of black goo and completely devoid of life, however that is not the case.
This past November, the three man mini-sub dove every day from the back end of the science boat Atlantis, which is the property of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Every day the Alvin came bearing gifts of mud from the seabed, red rock samples, and seawater.
However, one fine day, close to Thanksgiving, the Alvin brought up something amazing – Signs of life.
A professor of marine sciences with the University of North Carolina, Andreas Teske, really was astonished by the find.
He has described a scene you wouldn’t expect to see near ground zero of the BP oil fiasco. Mussel beds, white and orange carpets of bacteria, and even shrimp fish and sea cucumbers.
These survivors were all making their homes around an underwater lake, made of brine, which has been cleverly dubbed “Dead Crab Lake” due to the fact that anything that stays in too long gets pickled.
“You could see the surface of the brine pool just like the surface of a garden pond, totally clear,” Teske explains. “And in the brine pond, some animals that fell in got pickled — some crabs and others. So once they fall in, if they don’t manage to climb out quickly, that’s it!”
It’s good to see that nature once again proves that it will take more than a small little oil fiasco to take it down.