Smithsonian holdings are expected to provide an important baseline of understanding for future scientific studies on the impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Dr. Jonathan Coddington, Associate Director of Research and Collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, provides a detailed overview of the collections and their sources in his Congressional testimony from June 15, 2010. The samples were collected for years by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to help predict the potential impacts of future oil/gas explorations. Since 1979, the specimens have been deposited in the national collections of the National Museum of Natural History.