Scientists researching the Gulf of Mexico have found an underwater mass of dead biological material that appears to be growing as microscopic algae and bacteria get trapped and die. The blob is at least three feet (90 cm) thick and spans two-thirds of a mile (1 mile = 1 609 meters) parallel to the coast just off the Florida Panhandle, within the site of Perdido Key. The blob smells like rotten eggs and feels similar to jelly.

The researchers have been unable to determine how the blob was formed, where it comes from or where it will go. Tests show that the material is nearly 100% biological and less than a year old. It is also clear that tiny organisms have gotten stuck in the sticky blob and died. Tests carried out by the researchers also showed that the blob has no connection to land.

“It seems to be a combination of algae and bacteria,” says David Hollander, a chemical oceanographer with the University of South Florida. According to Hollander, the substance is toxic and “extraordinarily sticky”.

Scientists are not ruling out a connection to last years’ Deepwater Horizon disaster, but so far none of the tests have shown any sign of oil.

Researchers encountered the blob for the first time in December as they were searching for oily sediments on the sea floor. They did find such sediments, but they also got a tip about something weird floating around roughly half a mile from Perdido Pass and this caused them to change their plans and head over to the area to investigate.

The environment where the blob can be found is a relatively pristine sloping shelf. Normally, wave action will sweep away any sediments here.

Hollander and his team are planning to return to the blob within a few weeks to gather more samples, since they were unable to get any material from the bottom of the blob during their last visit. They will also try to map out the entire blob to be able to see exactly how big it is.



The contract crews from BP have marched onwards to Pensacola Beach, cleaning up tar balls by hand, however the national seashore’s supervisors were saving the heavy equipment until the Turtle and Bird mating season was over and done with, lest they disturb them even more than the spill itself did.

For the moment, scores of workers are removing and cleaning away tar balls with their bare hands. Morris commented that the crews are cleaning things away much more effectively now that the weather has cooled down and the laborors now have more experience in collecting the tar balls from the sand.

However, it is now time to stop messing around, and call in the big guns to get the mess cleared away. Jason Bragg, who is in charge of the machine removal of the tar balls from Panhandle beaches, has commented that while the Sand Shark isn’t a “rocket ship”, it is quite thorough, and removes all objects from the sand which are bigger than three millimeters – about the same size as the needles are across in a tattoo parlor.

This machine is eleven feet tall, weighs in at about 35 tons, has a top speed if two miles and hour and is manned by a skeleton crew of between six and ten people. In roughly one day – two ten hour shifts – the machine can clear away an area of sand which is eight feet wide and one and a half miles long. At this rate though, the beaches won’t be cleaned until late 2011 if then…

With the black goo from the BP oil spill making its way to the once clean shores, Billy Nungesser, the President of Plaquemines, has pleaded with the U.S. Coast Guard to help finish mopping up the mess BP left behind, before beginning to restore the area.

“The Coast Guard’s role through this whole thing has been to get in the way of local government,” Nungesser said Wednesday. “We’re still fighting. They want to downsize.”

Nungesser has commented that thousands of gallons of the black BP goo is making its way into the Parish’s delicate marshes and swampland.

Paul Zakunft, the Rear Admiral of the Coast Guard as well as the federal governments on scene coordinator, commented on Wednesday that there is a lot of the BP goo left to mop up, and the Coast Guard won’t be backing down from the challenge of doing so.

Even though the BP fiasco supposedly ended when they capped the well over 2 and a half months ago, over 20,000 workers ae still mopping up the mess from 588 miles of shoreline as well as the marshlands of Louisiana, Zakunft explained.

Two of the areas which are in desperate need of a cleanup are Barataria Bay and Bay Jimmy, he added.

The blame has been laid on the bad weather and high tides in the month of June, for spreading the black goo to where it isn’t welcome.. Well, it’s time someone stopped making excuses, and started mopping!

Dead zone may 2010. It is now bigger.

The “Dead Zone”, the low-oxygen area in the Gulf of Mexico, which has been recorded this year, might just be the largest on record and it overlaps areas which were affected by the oil spill courtesy of our Eco-friendly oil conglomerate BP.

The areas afflicted with low levels of oxygen, also known as hypoxia, cover an area estimated to be over 7,000 square miles of the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and extended as far as to actually enter Texas waters. This astonishing discovery was made by researchers at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, after performing a survey of the waters.

The area covered is expected to have included a section off of Galveston, Texas, as well, however poor weather conditions forced the researchers to cut their surveying trip short.

“The total area probably would have been the largest if we had enough time to completely map the western part,” said the consortium’s executive director, Nancy Rabalais.

The largest dead zone that was ever measured in a survey, which started on a regular basis in 1985, was slightly more than 8,000 square miles, and was recorded in 2001.

This annual summer “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico is generally attributed to chemicals used by farmers, and which make their way to the Gulf by means of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers.
The phosphorous and nitrogen contained in agricultural runoffs provide a food source which allows algae to prosper in the Gulf.

When bits of algae die off, or are excreted by sea animals which eat them settle onto the bottom of the water, they decompose and the bacteria consume the oxygen in the water.

The end result, the scientists explained, is that this causes oxygen depletion in the water, which forces many marine animals including fish, shrimp and crabs to either vacate their homes, or suffocate.

The marine life which makes its home in the sediments can survive with relatively little oxygen, however they will begin to die off as the oxygen level approaches zero.

To be considered as part of this “Dead Zone”, the oxygen levels in bottom waters in the Gulf of Mexico need to be at a level of 2 parts per million or less.

By the end of July this year, large areas of the norther part of the Gulf of Mexico had already reached that level, including one part close to Galveston Bay.

The area which the BP oil spill overlaps in some areas in the “Dead Zone”, Rabalais explained, and microbes which would be used to help clean up the spill can deplete oxygen levels in the water.

Be that as it may, scientists could not say that there is a definite link between the devastating oil spill, and the size of the “Dead Zone”.

“It would be difficult to link conditions seen this summer with oil from the BP spill in either a positive or negative way,” Rabalais explained.

Due to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP Oil Spill, parts of the Gulf of Mexico is closed for both commercial and recreational fishing.

The latest update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United States agency responsible for handling the closure, arrived on June 7 and became effective 6 p.m. eastern time on the same day. According to this update, the prohibited area now measures 78,264 sq mi (202,703 sq km), or about 32% of the Gulf of Mexico exclusive economic zone.

Map:

As stated above, all commercial and recreational fishing is banned in the area, including catch and release. It is however still legal to transit through the area.

Since it is impossible to know the exact extent of the oil spill at any given time, NOAA has advised fishermen to refrain from fishing if they notice any oil or oil sheen, even if it is outside the prohibited zone.

For those who wish to receive information as soon as the prohibited zone is modified, there are several channels to utilize:

– Get bullentins to your inbox by sending an e-mail to SERO.Communications.Comments@noaa.gov

– Get SMS notifications. Sign up by texting fishing@gulf to 84469.

– Follow NOAA on Twitter: usnoaagov

– Visit http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/deepwater_horizon_oil_spill.htm

– Listen to NOAA weather radio