The century oil spill still has consequences

According to research by University of Georgia (US) scientists published in the May 11 issue of Nature Geoscience, the amount of methane leaked after a serious oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 is still exists in seawater for many months, causing heavy impacts on the environment.

About half a million tons of gas, 80% of which is methane, leaked into the sea after the Deepwater Horizon rig of the giant oil giant BP (UK) in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010. Then, a marine bacterium, similar to aphids, has proliferated in this water-filled environment. Scientists say it is this marine bacterium that contributes to "clean up" the methane gas in seawater.

The oiled pelicans were brought back by the functional forces to wash away the oil.

Even in August of the same year, scientists thought that the leaked gas had been cleared by these "tiny" assistants . However, the results of the survey later showed that after a period of proliferation, the number of bacteria species abruptly decreased in the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, the concentration of concentrated methane in the Gulf of Mexico waters is still very high, at more than 5,000 times that of normal.

After the oil spill, the researchers found large amounts of methane in the northern and northeastern areas of the well where the incident occurred, and this amount of gas existed in the sea many months later. There are still no specific assessments on the environmental damage caused by the "oil spill disaster" .

Considered the "century oil spill" , BP's Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 killed 11 people, causing 4.9 million barrels of oil to spill into the sea, polluting the beaches of 5 states on the east coast of the US, in which Louisiana and Mississippi state must declare a state of emergency.

The large area of ​​oil has seriously threatened the habitat of marine species and the entire mangrove ecosystem of the two states of the United States along the Gulf of Mexico. BP had to spend tens of billions of dollars to clean up and restore contaminated waters, while addressing more than 300,000 petitions with an amount of compensation of up to $ 11 billion for economic recovery in the Gulf of Mexico.