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Professor believes most spilled oil settled on ocean floor
November 23, 2010 8:05 PM
SARAH OWEN / News Herald Writer
PANAMA CITY ? The oil is still there, sitting at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and causing damage to the environment, a Florida State University professor who studies greenhouse gases, oceans and energy said Tuesday.
Professor Jeff Chanton compared natural oil seepage in the Gulf of Mexico to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
About 1,000 natural ocean-floor leaks combine to trickle about 400,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf each year, Chanton said, but scientists estimate as many as 60,000 barrels of oil poured into the Gulf each day of the spill.
snip
The professor said he thinks most of that Deepwater Horizon oil ? as much as 70 percent to 79 percent of it ?sank to the ocean floor, where it remains, sucking up oxygen and inhibiting life.
more....
http://www.waltonsun.com/news/settled-88838-newsherald-most-spilled.html
November 23, 2010 8:05 PM
SARAH OWEN / News Herald Writer
PANAMA CITY ? The oil is still there, sitting at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and causing damage to the environment, a Florida State University professor who studies greenhouse gases, oceans and energy said Tuesday.
Professor Jeff Chanton compared natural oil seepage in the Gulf of Mexico to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
About 1,000 natural ocean-floor leaks combine to trickle about 400,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf each year, Chanton said, but scientists estimate as many as 60,000 barrels of oil poured into the Gulf each day of the spill.
snip
The professor said he thinks most of that Deepwater Horizon oil ? as much as 70 percent to 79 percent of it ?sank to the ocean floor, where it remains, sucking up oxygen and inhibiting life.
more....
http://www.waltonsun.com/news/settled-88838-newsherald-most-spilled.html