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Follow the Fingerprint: There are many sources of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, including natural deep-sea oil seeps, small spills from ships, and oil from roads that washes into the sea—not to mention big oil spills like Deepwater Horizon. How do GoMRI res
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Layers of Weathered Oil

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An underwater blizzard of oil, marine microbes, "sea snot", and algae.
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A Dirty Blizzard In the Gulf of Mexico

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A Tiny Fish Tells A Big Story: Some fish only spend a part of the year in the Gulf of Mexico, but some, like the Gulf killifish, live there year-round. In addition, these estuary fish are small and abundant, making them an excellent study species for scien
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Killifish in the Gulf of Mexico

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Marsh Erosion Sped Up: One of the worst places for oil to end up after a spill is in marshes, where it can kill grass and cause erosion. But how much damage does it do, how far inland does it reach, and how long does the damage last? Pictured here is oiled
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Marsh Erosion After An Oil Spill

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Dispersant in the Deep: Dispersants, soap-like chemicals that cause oil to mix with water more easily, have been used with success to remove oil after a spill on the ocean's surface. But Deepwater Horizon wasn't a surface spill; instead, oil spewed into th
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Oil Spewing From Macondo Well

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A raindrop falls into a surface oil slick treated with chemical dispersant.
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A Rain Drop On An Oil Slick

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Wave Tank At SL Ross sitting idle in a bunker like structure.
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Wave Tank At SL Ross

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Jeff Chanton's students collect plankton in large nets called plankton tows during the May 2012 R/V Weatherbird II Cruise in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Collecting Plankton

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Methane-eating bacteria (also called methanotrophs) helped clean up the Gulf oil spill, such as Methylococcus capsulatus shown here.
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Oil Spill Methanotroph

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Bubbles of methane gas rise through a mussel bed in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Methane Bubbles Up From Seep

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Purple octocoral at ECOGIG study site at the bottom of the sea.
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Purple Octocoral

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Graduate students Danielle Young from Temple University and Dannise Ruiz from Penn State preparing oil and dispersant solutions for exposure experiments with deep sea corals aboard the exploration vessel E/V Nautilus.
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Testing Impacts of Dispersants

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