Gulf Oil Spill: Science

A Smithsonian study of a 1986 oil spill on the coast of Panama is attracting renewed interest for its insights into the effects of oil spills on coastal systems. Working with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), marine ecologist Dr. Jeremy Jackson and a team of researchers examined the spill’s immediate and long-term effects on the coast in Bahia las Minas. The benchmark study, published in 1989, documented the damage oil causes to coastal and tidal habitats and is notable in part because of 15 years worth of ecological data the Smithsonian had collected about the area before the spill. The affected area includes the Smithsonian biological reserve known as the Galeta Marine Laboratory. “What we learned in a nutshell was never, ever, ever, ever allow oil to get into a complex coastal system of mangroves, sea grasses, and coral reefs because you’ll never get it out,” says Dr. Jackson. In this video interview with the Smithsonian Ocean Portal, he reflects on the Panama study and its implications for the Gulf oil spill, and reminds listeners that the greatest threats to the ocean—overfishing, climate change, and pollution of other forms—have combined to actually exceed the devastation unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. “If there’s any silver lining in the [Gulf] oil spill,” he says, “it’s that it might make us wake up to the magnitude of what we’re dealing with.”

In May 2010, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) sent a high-tech robotic submersible to the oily waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was programmed at the surface, then navigated through the water on its own, collecting information on deep oil plumes from the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig accident. Although satellites and aircraft helped show the extent of the spill at the surface, researchers hoped that the AUV would allow them understand what was happening farther down in the water column. During the NOAA-sponsored expedition, MBARI's AUV mapped part of a plume 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) below the surface, and collected water samples at various depths. The resulting data helped MBARI scientists and collaborators at other institutions identify a persistent deep oil plume that extended southwest of the wellhead. They were also able to link the oil in this plume to its source: the Deepwater Horizon blowout.