(Click to enlarge) Left: 12-year old Kevin Telfer from Boston, MA, with the prototype drifter buoy he and a fellow science partner Harrison Reiter built and field tested for their science fair project titled, “Deployment of a Drifter Buoy in the Sudbury River: Prototype Design and Results.” (Photo by Brian Telfer) Right: High school sophomore Elizabeth Smithwick from Jacksonville, FL, collects soil samples along the St. Johns River for her science fair project titled, “The Isolation, Examination, and Comparison of Hydrocarbon Degrading Bacteria in the St. Johns River.” (Photo provided by Elizabeth Smithwick)

Scientists conducting GoMRI-funded oil spill research take their mission regarding society seriously:

The goal of GoMRI is to improve society’s ability to understand, respond to, and mitigate the impacts of petroleum pollution and related stressors of the marine and coastal ecosystems.—GoMRI Mission Statement

They employ cutting-edge technology to collect and analyze data using rigorous scientific parameters and publish their findings. But there are other ways these researchers define success, like working with students. When young students seek answers to scientific questions and contact them, these scientists experience a special type of accomplishment and fulfillment. Two GoMRI-funded researchers shared their experiences working closely with middle and high school students who initiated contact with them for help on science fair projects.

Dr. Tamay Özgökmen, director of the Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE) at the University of Miami, said it was with “great pleasure” that he first replied to an unsolicited email with questions from Brian Telfer of Boston, MA, on behalf of his 12 year old son about the drifter buoys that Özgökmen uses in research. He quickly replied to the father, “Your email is quite important for us, because inspiring the younger generation is one of our ultimate objectives (I just did not expect it so fast!).” To further show his excitement, Özgökmen posted the correspondence on the CARTHE Facebook page, adding, “This is what we consider total success!”

Brian has two children interested in science. His older daughter Claire, 15, initially found information on the CARTHE drifters on the internet while working on her own school project to design an autonomous boat to cross the Atlantic. She shared the information with her brother Kevin who, according to his father, was not very “into” science projects in the past, but did like to build things. Kevin made buoys before using a design from a University of Texas project he found on the internet, but really liked the fins and GPS included on the CARTHE buoys. Kevin thought he might be able to add fins and the GPS in such a way that he could follow his buoy down a river in real-time, watching on his computer. And thus his science fair project was born.

After Özgökmen explained how he worked with Globalstar to modify the GPS, Kevin and his science partner Harrison Reiter completed their buoy design for the project. Marked with a handwritten note that said, “Please do not disturb! Kids’ science project,” they launched the buoy into Fairhaven Bay and the Sudbury River, let it drift overnight, and picked it up in the morning. Using the GPS attached to their design, they tracked the path the buoy took through the night time hours. The two used this information to model the currents on their computer in a similar manner that CARTHE is using to model the currents in the Gulf of Mexico. In their science fair project presentation, the boys acknowledged Dr. Özgökmen, saying his eagerness to help encouraged them to try the daring project. Kevin’s father noted that “CARTHE was one of their main inspirations…Kevin has never had interest in a science project from anyone outside our town before, and I know it made a big impression on him.” Kevin plans to take his project to the next level, adding instrumentation and testing it in the ocean. Additionally, Kevin’s sister Claire plans to include the same GPS that CARTHE used in her project.

Another teen, Elizabeth Smithwick, a tenth grader in Jacksonville, FL, had her own ambitious plans in place for a science fair project when she contacted Dr. Joel Kostka at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GaTech) for assistance. Kostka is co-Principal Investigator and a steering committee member in the Deepsea to Coast Connectivity in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (DEEP-C) consortium led by Eric Chassignet at Florida State University. Elizabeth’s interest was in exploring the microbes in the St. John’s River that degrade oil, and she sought assistance from Kostka whose work has been instrumental in discovering more about the oil-consuming microbes in the Gulf of Mexico.  

Elizabeth explains, “I had been working for a while in a hospital microbiology lab, but I wanted to investigate how bacteria degrade or remove oil naturally from the environment. And since the hospital dealt with clinical bacteria, they suggested I discuss my project with someone who specialized in environmental microbiology.” She found and read a study by Kostka on hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria in beach sands that prompted her to contact him. Kostka said that “her project was certainly in line with the work we are doing” and invited Elizabeth to his lab at GaTech. That visit turned into a mentorship.

Elizabeth worked closely with her contacts at Kostka’s lab, making use of resources of the Deep-C consortium, as she tested and examined oil degradation in the St. John’s River.  The Kostka lab developed a high throughput gene sequencing pipeline that identifies oil-degrading bacteria in hundreds of water and sediment samples from the Gulf.  Ph.D. student Will Overholt and undergraduate student Kala Marks who work in the Kostka lab assisted Elizabeth to identify and isolate bacteria using genetic methods. After working at the Kostka lab, Elizabeth felt ready to embark on her study, confident that she could isolate new strains of bacteria. After returning home, Elizabeth worked with the St. John’s River Keeper to identify areas that might have been exposed to oil and then analyzed sediment samples, successfully isolating microbes that were degrading hydrocarbons.

“She really persevered!” Kostka recalls. “She asked a lot of questions and kept coming back to us to learn more. Elizabeth demonstrated that self-motivation and commitment are as important to the research process as brute knowledge.”

Elizabeth’s hard work paid off. Her project placed first in the regional science fair and third in the Florida state competition. In addition, she placed third in Environmental Sciences at the Science and Engineering Fair of Florida and won the regional U.S. Stockholm Water prize, a contest exclusively for water-related projects. The Florida Institute of Technology awarded her a four-year $54,000 scholarship based on the success of her study. Her message to other young students is to pursue their interests, saying, “I would tell them, if they see an article that appears interesting to them, try to contact the author. The worst they could do is say ‘no’ and often times they are very willing to help.” She adds, “I have always been interested in becoming a researcher, and my visit to the Kostka Lab only reinforced that. If I do become a researcher, I hope that I can help students pursue research like they helped me.”

CARTHE comprises 26 principal investigators from 12 universities and research institutions distributed across four Gulf of Mexico states and four other states.  Their primary goal is to accurately predict the fate of hydrocarbons released into the environment. Visit the CARTHE website.

The Deep-C consortium consists of 10 research institutions including two international organizations. Deep-C conducts long-term, interdisciplinary studies of deep-sea-to-coast connectivity in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico to understand the environmental consequences of petroleum hydrocarbon release in the deep Gulf on living marine resources and ecosystem health. Visit the Deep-C website.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) is a 10-year, $500 million independent research program established by an agreement between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon incident and the potential associated impact of this and similar incidents on the environment and public health.

(Click to enlarge) Oil slick, photo provided by John Kessler.

Scientists who tracked deep underwater oil and gas plumes after the Deepwater Horizon incident concluded that the respiration of dissolved and trapped hydrocarbons resulted in reduced dissolved oxygen concentrations from a bloom of hydrocarbon-eating bacteria.

These naturally occurring microbes then consumed an estimated 200,000 tons of hydrocarbons, and the study suggests that the use of dispersants at the wellhead increased the speed of this process. The researchers published their findings in the August 2012 edition of Environmental Science and Technology:  Assessment of the spatial and temporal variability of bulk hydrocarbon respiration following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

(Click to enlarge) Mengran Du and John Kessler in the field collecting data close to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site. Photo provided by John Kessler.

Working from May to September 2010, researchers measured over 1300 dissolved oxygen profiles. They tracked this deep water hydrocarbon feast in all directions around the wellhead, an area of almost 30,000 square miles. The team analyzed the data to determine the quantity of oil and gas that bacteria consumed and to characterize how this consumption changed with time.  Analyses showed that the decrease in dissolved oxygen and increase in microbes followed the movement of the oil plumes generally toward the southwest from the spill site.  After estimating the amount of hydrocarbons released into the Gulf and the amount consumed by bacteria, the researchers provided the first estimated measurements of how the rate of respiration changed during the period of 5 months following the incident. From these calculations, the team found “that the addition of dispersants to the wellhead effectively accelerated hydrocarbon respiration.”

In their discussions, the researchers suggest that tracking and analyzing dissolved oxygen in the plumes is “an easy and effective approach” to estimate hydrocarbon release and respiration rates, and ultimately use that information to quantify the amount of oil consumed by bacteria after a spill. The authors further suggest that for future events, an effort “to sample an organized network, similar to the NOAA ‘clean sweep’ grid” would be an effective way to quantify hydrocarbon release and thus provide the necessary information to estimate environmental impact and inform recovery decisions.

The study authors are Mengran Du and John D. Kessler (Environmental Science and Technology 2012, 46 (19), pp 10499-10507).

View a video interview with co-author Kessler.  Read announcements from the University of Rochester and Texas A&M University.

This research was made possible in part by a Grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) through the Gulf of Mexico Integrated Spill Response (GISR) Consortium. The GoMRI is a 10-year, $500 million independent research program established by an agreement between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon incident and the potential associated impact of this and similar incidents on the environment and public health.

[UPDATED]
Job #0132

Job Duties: Assist in the implementation of a variety of software solutions to integrate the various components that makes up the GRIIDC information system based on an architectural design. Publication of the modules on an OpenSource environment also entails the need to document each module as they are published and deployed.

Assist GRIIDC administer its servers, storage devices and networks to ensure efficient communication and data transports.

Assist GRIIDC in the design of GRIIDC infrastructure that also entails the need to install and evaluate existing products to a CentOS-based server with Drupal CMS.

Work with team members to ensure delivery of products and services as scheduled and planned, which may require assisting other members of the technical team developing related modules.

Assist in testing and maintenance of GRIIDC developed modules and system in general.

Assist in training on the efficient use of the developed system to members of the team and clients of the product and services.

Keep track of issues raised during the development, testing and deployment phases of the information system using standard issue tracking systems. 

Click here for more information and to apply.

(Click to enlarge) Gulf killifish embryos exposed to sediments from oiled locations show developmental abnormalities, including heart defects, delayed hatching and reduced hatching success. (Benjamin Dubansky/photo)

Crude oil toxicity continued to sicken a sentinel Gulf Coast fish species for at least more than a year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to new findings from a research team that includes a University of California, Davis, scientist.

(From UCDAVIS) – With researchers from Louisiana and South Carolina, the scientists found that Gulf killifish embryos exposed to sediments from oiled locations in 2010 and 2011 show developmental abnormalities, including heart defects, delayed hatching and reduced hatching success. The killifish is an environmental indicator species, or a “canary in the coal mine,” used to predict broader exposures and health risks.

The findings, posted online in advance of publication in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, are part of an ongoing collaborative effort to track the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on Gulf killifish populations in areas of Louisiana that received heavy amounts of oil. 

Other species that share similar habitats with the Gulf killifish, such as redfish, speckled trout, flounder, blue crabs, shrimp and oysters — may be at risk of similar effects.   

“These effects are characteristic of crude oil toxicity,” said co-author Andrew Whitehead, an assistant professor of environmental toxicology at UC Davis. “It’s important that we observe it in the context of the Deepwater Horizon spill because it tells us it is far too early to say the effects of the oil spill are known and inconsequential. By definition, effects on reproduction and development — effects that could impact populations — can take time to emerge.”

Killifish are abundant in the coastal marsh habitats along the Gulf Coast. Though not fished commercially, they are an important forage fish and a key member of the ecological community. Because they are nonmigratory, measurements of their health are indicative of their local environment, making them an ideal subject for study.

The researchers collected Gulf killifish from an oiled site at Isle Grande Terre, La., and monitored them for measures of exposure to crude oil. They also exposed killifish embryos in the lab to sediment collected from oiled sites at Isle Grande Terre within Barataria Bay in Louisiana.

“Our findings indicate that the developmental success of these fish in the field may be compromised,” said lead author Benjamin Dubansky, who recently earned his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University.

Whitehead said the report’s findings may predict longer-term impacts to killifish populations. However, oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill showed up in patches, rather than coating the coastline. That means some killifish could have been hit hard by the spill while others were less impacted.

Whitehead said it is possible that some of the healthier, less impacted killifish could buffer the effects of the spill for the population as a whole.

The research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative and the National Institutes of Health.

The other researchers in the study are Fernando Galvez, associate professor of biological sciences at Louisiana State University; and Charles D. Rice, professor of biological sciences at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. The researchers have tracked the impact of the oil on killifish since the Deepwater Horizon spill occurred in April 2010.

About UC Davis

For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has more than 33,000 students, more than 2,500 faculty and more than 21,000 staff, an annual research budget of nearly $750 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

Additional information:

• Read the report
• Download photos of researcher, killifish, and embryo

Media contact(s):

• Andrew Whitehead, Environmental Toxicology, (530) 754-8982, awhitehead@ucdavis.edu
• Kat Kerlin, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-7704, kekerlin@ucdavis.edu

“GoMRI In the news” is a reposting of articles about GoMRI-funded research (published by various news outlets). The author’s interpretations and opinions expressed in these articles is not necessarily that of GoMRI.

Dr. Francisco Hung

The GoMRI community congratulates one of our own – Dr. Francisco Hung, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Louisiana State University – as a recipient of the prestigious NSF Career Award. 

The NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offers this five year, $400,000 award to support junior faculty of exceptional promise and who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research.

Dr. Hung is an investigator with the GoMRI-funded Consortium for the Molecular Engineering of Dispersant Systems (C-MEDS), led by Dr. Vijay John at Tulane University.

The focus of Hung’s research is on computer simulations at the molecular level; this NSF CAREER Award in particular concentrates on studying ionic liquids, which can have very diverse applications, for example recovering oil from sand. Dr. Hung explains that molecular simulations can complement laboratory experiments in a unique way, “Computer simulations can help you have a deeper level of understanding of experiment results.  A simulation at the molecular level of detail allows you to see what the molecules are doing, and can provide explanations to experiments that might be puzzling.”

The education components are key criteria for this award. Dr. Hung incorporates his research into the courses he teaches, has undergraduate and graduate students work with him on his projects, and mentors summer interns with different Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs in which he is involved. Hung plans to design hands-on activities for public-school students in grades 8-12, then have undergraduate students go into public schools and engage the students there, saying, “These activities aim to help kids see that science and engineering are fun and exciting, not boring and out of their reach.” Dr. Hung mainly wants the undergraduates to be the primary ones interacting with these students, adding, “It’s more effective for a person closer in age and who is a student to talk and work with young kids; it’s better than having a professor telling them things.”

(Click to enlarge) Dr. Francisco Hung is the faculty advisor for the LSU ChemE Car team shown here at the 2011 national competition. The team builds and controls a car powered by chemical reactions. From L-R: Khiet Mai, Adesua Eigbe, Francisco Hung, Robert Schoen and Roshan Pandey. (Photo provided by the LSU ChemE Car Team)

Dr. Hung’s Venezuelan heritage drew him to become an advisor to the LSU chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. “I try to encourage them to excel in engineering. I tell them that I came to this country without too much money and my mom and brothers are far away. And yet I am here, and it is possible to succeed in science and engineering and help them see that this is an exciting and good career.”

The news of this award could not have come at a better time. Dr. Hung had heard that awardees typically receive a phone call from the program manager, and as the time for expected announcements dwindled, his hopes likewise sank.  A friend he has not seen for over 10 years was visiting Francisco and his family, and while they were walking around nearby New Orleans, Francisco decided to check his phone for email, “And there it was – a message that I got the award. It was so unexpected! We were jumping for joy right in the middle of a store!”

“It is a great, humbling honor,” said Dr. Hung in response to LSU Dean of Engineering Rick Koubek’s description of this award as recognizing “the very top rising research stars in the country.” The award process includes peer-review of every proposal. “Knowing that some of my peers think highly about my work makes me feel very happy.”

The GoMRI research program is a 10-year, $500 million independent research program established by an agreement between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon incident and the potential associated impact of this and similar incidents on the environment and public health.

(Click to enlarge) Markus Huettel holds a sediment core sample from Pensacola Beach, Florida. Researchers used sands from this area for their study.

Scientists studying the fate of oil from the Deepwater Horizon incident published their findings in the November 2012 edition of Public Library of Science (PLoS ONE):  Dispersants as used in response to the MC252-spill lead to higher mobility of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in oil-contaminated Gulf of Mexico sand.

Researchers concluded that the addition of dispersants can increase the movement of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in saturated (wet) permeable sediments of up to two orders of magnitude.

Researchers collected samples of water, sediment, and sand from Santa Rosa Island, Florida. They conducted laboratory experiments using sand-filled columns of various lengths ranging from 10 to 50 cm, and they conducted in-situ chamber experiments in the Gulf to link laboratory results to the natural environment. The column experiments showed that PAHs can move from the water column into sands, and that the addition of dispersants to the water percolating the sand determines the penetration depth of the PAHs. The in-situ chamber tests confirmed laboratory findings for natural settings.  From the results of these two experiments, researchers concluded that the presence of dispersants allow oil components to permeate faster and deeper into sands.

In their discussion, the authors suggest two possible impacts on oil degradation as a result of PAHs moving deeper and faster into sands: (1) the deeper penetration of hydrocarbons may slow their degradation due to the decreased concentration of oxygen in deeper sediment layers and thus extend the time these hydrocarbons stay in the environment; and (2) in fully oxygenated sands, a deeper penetration may increase the number of microbes involved in the hydrocarbon biodegradation and thus accelerate the decomposition. Deeper penetration of hydrocarbons into permeable coastal sediment facilitated by dispersants could have potential impacts to groundwater.

The study authors are Alissa Zuijdgeest and Markus Huettel (PLoS ONE 7(11): e50549).

This research was made possible in part by a Grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) through the Florida Institute of Oceanography and the Deepsea to Coast Connectivity in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (DEEP-C) Consortium. The GoMRI is a 10-year, $500 million independent research program established by an agreement between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon incident and the potential associated impact of this and similar incidents on the environment and public health.

(Click to enlarge) Dr. Cai and his research team on the RV Pelican deploy a CTD/Rosette water sampler to collect water samples in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo provided by Wei-Jen Huang/UGA)

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, much has been written – in the popular press as well as scientific journals – regarding the potential impact the large volume of oil might have on the flora and fauna of the northern Gulf of Mexico.

But what about the oil’s impact on the water itself? In the months following the oil spill, researchers Wei-Jun Cai of the University of Delaware and Xinping Hu of Texas A & M University – Corpus Christi analyzed dissolved oxygen (DO) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in the Gulf’s water column. In the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative funded study “Dynamics of Dissolved Inorganic Carbon and Dissolved Oxygen Following Natural or Manmade Petroleum Carbon Release into Marine Environments,” they will attempt to quantify their earlier observations and develop a protocol to measure this phenomenon in the future.

Just as they do on the earth’s surface, organisms in the water either produce or consume oxygen, depending on their species. Sea water has a set ratio of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other nutrients that exists even in hypoxic areas, known as “dead zones.” After the oil spill, Cai and Hu noted a distinct change in the relationship between dissolved oxygen (DO) versus dissolved carbon dioxide (CO₂) or inorganic carbon (DIC) generated during the period when large amounts of oil were decomposing in the environment:

If you plot the oxygen consumption and CO₂ production together, if it’s marine-produced carbon, it always follows a similar pattern. When there is petroleum present, then data points are flying off the charts, with the same amount of oxygen consumption, you actually see less CO₂ production. – Dr. Xinping Hu, Texas A & M University at Corpus Christi

(Click to enlarge) The research team watches as the CTD submerges into the water. (Photo provided by Wei-Jen Huang/UGA)

Within the scientific community, there was some disagreement over what caused the change in numbers following the oil spill. Was the difference in the levels of DO and CO₂ in the water chemistry caused by the extra oil in the environment or did oil simply coat the sensors (used to capture the oxygen data) and skew the numbers? Cai and Hu feel strongly that the data show a clear indicator of oil exposure and are extending their study in an attempt to prove definitively that these correlations differ in a healthy ocean versus one contaminated by oil.

Long proponents of carbon cycle research in the Gulf of Mexico, Cai and Hu have collected water samples in the same region of the northern Gulf since 2006. In May, Hu will collect more water samples and will also collect sediment samples. At this point, according to their observations, the water column has likely returned to pre-spill conditions so they will look for potential lingering chemical changes evident in the sediment. Dr. Jianhong Xue from the University of Texas Marine Science Institute will work with Cai and Hu to analyze seven years of data for broader topics associated with the Gulf carbon cycle. 

(Click to enlarge) Dr. Xinping Hu analyzes water samples from the Gulf of Mexico while on board the RV Pelican. (Photo by: N. Rabalais, LUMCON)

We’ve been working on the marine carbon cycle for so many years, and have been able to push forward carbon cycle issues in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill was large and very dramatic, but I also want to mention that there are a lot of natural oil seeps that release the petroleum carbonate all the time. We want to study how this carbon moves, but we don’t have a good way to quantify when these smaller leaks occur in the natural environment. It’s something we need to pay attention to. This could be a long term goal for the scientific community, to try to find out exactly how much carbon is being released into our oceans in the form of petroleum. – Dr.  Xinping Hu, Texas A & M University at Corpus Christi

Ultimately, Cai and Hu plan to develop a product to help other scientists studying the carbon cycle in the world’s oceans: a standard protocol to evaluate the degradation of petroleum carbon and associated oxygen dynamics. The data collected in the Gulf will go towards the creation of an algorithm for detecting oil degradation signal. Hu feels that with the justified concern regarding the presence of greenhouse gases in the environment – the main product of fossil carbon usage – that any additional data on the carbon cycle, in the air or under water, can help scientists broaden their understanding of those issues and how they are related to climate change.

This research is made possible by a grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. The GoMRI is a 10-year, $500 million independent research program established by an agreement between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon incident and the potential associated impact of this and similar incidents on the environment and public health.

(Click to enlarge) Sunset over the gulf. (Photo: David Levin)

Just three years ago, the DeepWater Horizon oil spill gushed 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Reporter David Levin from Mind Open Media reports on a team of chemists, engineers, and biologists that is attempting to assess the overall damage to the Gulf ecosystem.

(From living on earth / by David Levin)

Transcript

CURWOOD: It’s Living On Earth, I’m Steve Curwood. Just three years ago, on April 20th , a deep water BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico burst open, spewing over 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf, fouling beaches, fishing grounds and the sea-bed. Now science is trying to understand exactly what effects a spill like this has on the marine ecosystem. One collaboration of chemists, engineers and biologists, at the University of South Florida, is called C-IMAGE, which stands for the Center for Integrated Modeling and Analysis of the Gulf Ecosystem. Since August 2012, the C-IMAGE team has been collecting samples in the Gulf of Mexico, and reporter David Levin went along with them. His story comes to us from Mind Open Media.

[CAR RADIO BLARING]

LEVIN: It’s 9 a.m., and David Hollander is driving me around St. Petersburg, Florida, listening to the morning news. Hollander is a marine chemist at the University of South Florida. We’re running some last-minute errands. In a few hours, we’re shipping out for an eight-day research cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. But first, we’ve got an important stop to make. The wig store.

(Click to enlarge) This map shows thousands of oil platforms (represented by yellow dots) scattered throughout the Louisiana and Mississippi Coast in the Gulf of Mexico. White crosshairs mark the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and blue and orange circles represent C-IMAGE sampling sites. (Photo: David Levin)

[BEEP FROM CASH REGISTER SCANNER]

HOLLANDER: We’re picking up Styrofoam heads. It’s for research, believe it or not.

CLERK: [LAUGHS] OK, good luck to you. Take care.

[WALKING OUT, STORE AUTOMATIC SLIDING DOORS OPEN]

LEVIN: This is something of a tradition – on the research cruise, Hollander and his students will attach the heads to instruments they’ll lower down to the ocean floor.

HOLLANDER: …and the heads, because of the pressure, shrink to about a third their size. And if you paint them nicely, it turns out to be quite a memento.

LEVIN: The plan is for these heads, and the instruments, to descend to the source of the Deepwater Horizon spill, at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Back in April 2010, a floating rig owned by BP exploded. It sank a mile down to the bottom, leaving a broken wellhead on the sea floor about 40 miles off the Mississippi Delta. For three straight months, oil sprayed up from the wellhead to the surface, and as it rose, vast plumes of toxic chemicals and oil droplets broke off, staying suspended in the seawater at different depths. They drifted around the Gulf like toxic clouds.

(Click to enlarge) C-IMAGE scientists Patrick Schwing and David Hollander help bring in a multicorer, a device that samples sediment from the ocean floor. Inside the frame are eight thick plastic tubes that sink into the mud when the device hits the bottom, sealing the sediments inside. The samples will help Schwing and Hollander determine the extent to which oil has affected the ecosystem at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

HOLLANDER: This is not a black layer in the ocean. It doesn’t even look like vinaigrette when you bring it up – it looks like crystal clear water. And the reason is because they were such fine droplets, that you couldn’t see them.

LEVIN: The underwater plumes eventually floated into the continental slope. That’s where the ocean floor drops out dramatically – it falls from a few hundred feet deep to a few thousand.

When the plumes hit the slope, they left a smear of oily residue. Hollander and his team are using this cruise to visit those oil-soaked areas. Their mission: collect both sediment and fish to measure the plume’s impact on the Gulf ecosystem—from huge whales to tiny single-celled animals.

This project’s part of a larger research effort Hollander helped start at USF. He’s organized scientists from around the world to study the aftermath of the spill. The group calls themselves C-IMAGE… And this cruise is the first part of their collaboration.

[CLANKING FOOTSTEPS ON GANGPLANK, ENGINES WHIRRING]

LEVIN: For the next eight days, our home base will be here, on the Weatherbird II, a 115 foot research vessel.

WHITE: Welcome aboard, glad to finally have everybody on board. Looking at a 4 a.m. start, 5 a.m. start…

LEVIN: That’s Matt White, the ship’s captain. We’re about to set sail for an area of the sea floor called the Desoto Canyon, about 60 miles southwest of the Florida panhandle. It’s one of the places where the oil plumes bumped into the continental slope.

(Click to enlarge) A view forward from the stern deck of the R/V Weatherbird II, the 115-foot research vessel used by C-IMAGE, as it waits to embark on an 8-day research cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo: David Levin)

[CRANE WHIRRING]

By midnight, we’re at our first stop. Hollander’s team lowers a device called a multicorer into the water. It’s a metal frame about 10 feet tall.

SCHWING: The multicorer literally looks like a giant spider, or a giant lunar lander…

LEVIN: Patrick Schwing is a post-doc in Hollander’s lab. He’s watching the multicorer disappear under the waves. When it hits the bottom, eight plastic tubes inside it will grab mud from the seafloor.

SCHWING: …and at that point we start pulling it back up.

LEVIN: These coring samples are crucial for understanding how the spill moved around the Gulf. They’ll help the team predict what happens to oil after a deep water blowout, and how long it’ll last in the water. But the life of the oil is only half the picture. To understand its impact on the ecosystem, the team needs to know how fish and other animals are faring.

[ON DECK]

MURAWSKI: Look at that sunrise. That’s sharp.

LEVIN: The next day, at 6 in the morning, Steve Murawski stands on deck, holding laundry baskets full of bait.

MURAWSKI: It’s a combination of squid and Boston mackerel…

LEVIN: Murawski is a biological oceanographer at USF, and he’s running this research cruise along with Hollander. He’s setting up for a long day of fishing. His team is using a winch the size of a 50-gallon drum to let out five miles of metal cable. Strung out along the cable are 500 baited hooks. It’s a technique called long-lining. As the cable spools out, it settles across the bottom, attracting fish that live near the oily sediments.

MURAWSKI: It’s a unique opportunity to see what’s going on with the fishes in the really deep water. We know that there’s oil on the bottom. What we’re trying to see is if that oil is having any food chain effects.

LEVIN: Murawski thinks the toxic chemicals may have been absorbed by tiny animals that live in the sediments…like clams, snails, and worms, which all get eaten by fish. So if there’s any oil lower down in the food chain, it might end up in the fish. If it does, Murawski wants to know. So he’s taking samples from all the species he catches on his long line.

MURAWSKI: So what we’re going to do is look at the bile, the blood, the liver, the muscle, and then some of the organs of the fish. So that should tell us number one, is there active oil in the environment, and number two, is it being uptaken by these fish, some of which are of commercial importance.

[FLOPPING FISH ON DECK]

LEVIN: One by one, fish come off the long line and flop onto the deck. Red snapper, Dogfish. Eels. Grouper. Tuna. This part of the research is grueling. Murawski and his students work in 100 degree heat, cutting out fish guts so they can test them for chemicals from the oil.…and when they’re done with that, they reach for the bone saw.

(Click to enlarge) These dogfish (actually type of shark) are common in the Gulf of Mexico, and come up frequently on C-IMAGE fishing lines. (Photo: David Levin)

[BONE SAW CUTTING INTO FISH HEAD]

HERDTER: Whoo! Perfect!

LEVIN: Liz Herdter, one of Murawski’s students, just split open the head of a yellowedge grouper. She uses tweezers to pull out delicate bones from its inner ears. They look like tiny oyster shells.

HERDTER: These are otoliths. They’re like an earstone. Steve likes to call it the flight recorder.

LEVIN: That’s because a new layer of bone forms around an otolith every year. They’re laid down like the rings of a tree, and by analyzing these layers, you can track the health of the fish over time.

HERDTER: If they came into contact with any chemicals, there’ll be a chemical marker, so they’re a really neat way to determine what’s been happening in the life of the fish.

(Click to enlarge) USF Graduate student Liz Herdter carefully removes delicate inner ear bones called “otoliths” from a Yellowedge Grouper. Chemicals trapped in various layers of the otoliths provide a detailed record of the fishes’ exposure to toxins throughout its life, and may help provide clues to the fishes’ exposure to oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill. (Photo: David Levin)

LEVIN: Murawski’s team wants to use these samples to create a big-picture view of fish and ecosystem health in the Gulf. Even today, some fish are still in bad shape… Like the 50-pound red snapper Murawski’s holding. It’s got a skin lesion.

MURAWSKI: It’s also got a bad eye! See his eye? His eye’s gone. So this is the kind of fish we want to investigate for whether it has any relationship to oil or not.

LEVIN: Sick fish like this one don’t surprise Murawski. He thinks their bad health is connected to what’s going on in the sediments, and Hollander just found some evidence to back that up.
At a work table crammed into a corner of the deck, Hollander points to one of the cores his team pulled up the night before. It’s a clear plastic tube, about two feet long and six inches wide. It’s full of grey mud, where tiny worms, snails, and clams have burrowed, mixing it all up… But a few inches from the top, that uniform grey suddenly turns brown. And that, he says, means trouble.

HOLLANDER: What this really represents is where the subsurface plumes actually touched the sediment surface.

(Click to enlarge) From L to R: C-IMAGE researchers transfer a sediment core sample into a storage tube on the deck of the R/V Weatherbird II. (Photo: David Levin)

LEVIN: When the plumes hit the sea floor, they wiped out the tiny creatures that usually mix up the sediment. So after the spill, all that churning activity ground to a halt.

HOLLANDER: If there were organisms mixing this, you wouldn’t find these distinct layers, so those organisms are gone.

LEVIN: In some parts of the Gulf, they still haven’t come back. And since some fish live in and near the sediments, Hollander thinks the chemical plumes probably affected them, too, causing the liver problems and skin lesions Murawski’s been seeing. But it’s hard to know for sure. Figuring out what the toxins may have done to the fish is a challenge, and it’s tough to pinpoint which chemicals could be the culprits.

HOLLANDER: You know, you have to be able to trace the oil from its origin, through the water column, onto the sediments, and then as that material degrades, how do you follow it? Not that easy.

LEVIN: The C-IMAGE team still has a long way to go. Over the next three years, they’re planning a few more research cruises that will take them back into the Gulf. And next time, Hollander promises to do something with those Styrofoam heads – which we painted onboard this cruise. He plans to lower them to the seafloor at the exact site of the Deepwater Horizon spill. In a way, he says, he’ll give those inanimate heads a look at what’s going on down there – just like he and his students are doing from the surface.

(Click to enlarge) From top to bottom: C-IMAGE researchers Patty Smukall (USF Teacher-At-Sea), Theresa Greely, David Hastings, and Patrick Schwing process samples in the onboard lab lof the RV Weatherbird II. (Photo: David Levin)

For Living on Earth, I’m David Levin in Tampa Florida.

CURWOOD: David’s story comes to us from Mind Open Media. To learn more, head to our website, LOE.org.

“GoMRI In the news” is a reposting of articles about GoMRI-funded research (published by various news outlets). The author’s interpretations and opinions expressed in these articles is not necessarily that of GoMRI.

(Click to enlarge) Oil droplets floating on surface water. (Photo by ehow.com)

Often misunderstood by the public, dispersants are the single biggest weapon in the arsenal of those combating an oil spill. COREXIT 9500A, the dispersant used after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill helped scatter much of the oil, but the public expressed concern about possible harmful effects should it enter the food chain. 

In the GoMRI-funded project “Development of Cost-Efficient and Concentration-Independent Dispersants for Improved Oil Spill Remediation,” Drs. Scott Grayson and Wayne Reed of Tulane University and Daniel Savin of the University of Southern Mississippi seek to design a new generation of dispersants that are more effective and cost efficient and with minimal side effects if ingested by marine or human life. 

(Click to enlarge) A dense layer of polymer grafts can be grown from nanoparticle surfaces using ATRP (atom transfer radical polymerization). (Image by Muhammad Ejaz)

Dispersants work because of their chemistry. Basically, they are soap. Just like dishwashing liquid binds to grease on plates and pans so that it can be washed down the drain, dispersants act as an interface between oil and water. Because oil molecules are incompatible with water, they aggregate into balls or sheets at its surface. Constructed of molecules that are water soluble (polar) at one end and oil soluble (non-polar) at the other, dispersants act as an interface, enabling the large aggregates of oil to break up into smaller pieces. If enough dispersant is used, the coagulated oil breaks up and the oil molecules scatter individually throughout the body of water where they degrade more rapidly. However, for traditional dispersants to work effectively, very large amounts have to be employed directly on an oil ball or sheet. If not enough is used, the dispersant will be overwhelmed and wash away. When large bodies of water overwhelm dispersants, oil begins to reform in globules that can wreak havoc on the environment.

 If you play tricks with chemistry and architecture, then you can actually make surfactants [dispersants] that do not break up. Even in very low concentrations they are still effective at encapsulating oil. What we have to do is basically take amphiphilic molecules and pin them together, lock them in place covalently with chemical bonds, so regardless of dilution they should still be effective.—Scott Grayson, Tulane University

In addition to increasing the overall effectiveness of dispersants regardless of concentration and thus vastly reducing the amount necessary to mitigate oil, the team’s other goal involves reducing fears of possible dispersant toxicity. Because of the sheer volume of COREXIT 9500A used in 2010—more than 1.8 million gallons according to government sources—many people wondered about potential negative effects of it entering the food chain and possibly later being ingested by humans.  Grayson and his partners will minimize the problem by constructing their product entirely of substances approved by the FDA for human consumption.  While prototypes of similar highly stable dispersants have been developed, they are not currently cost effective.  Grayson’s team would use materials such as silica and polythene glycol, common additives in food and medicine that can be obtained cheaply by the ton.

Why do they use COREXIT versus anything else?  It’s undeniably the best surfactant that the price is reasonable for.  Looking at this problem not from a laboratory scientist point of view, but from someone who is trying to get a real world solution, how can we bring the cost down to these better solutions to the point where they actually become reasonable solutions?—Scott Grayson, Tulane University

(Click to enlarge) The research team from left to right: Wayne Reed, Kyle Bentz, Muhammad Ejaz, Dan Savin, and Scott Grayson (not pictured Alina Alb). (Photo provided by Scott Grayson)

In order to achieve a more effective, cost efficient, and less toxic dispersant, Grayson, a polymer chemist, will create the prototypes of the dispersants in his lab. Reed, a polymer physicist, will test the prototypes. Specialized automated machinery will measure the stability of the molecules and relevant oil absorption under an array of temperatures and conditions—literally every second—to understand the advantages and potential disadvantages of using them in the event of a real spill. Savin, who is conversant in both developing and testing similar products, will assist both aspects of the study, looking at the size and stability of the particles to describe and characterize them for future use.

I think science is one of our most empowering tools. Living in New Orleans and the Gulf South—and I know I speak for Wayne Reed and Dan Savin—we’ve all felt the negative effects of the BP oil spill and of Hurricane Katrina. When struggling with these tremendous disasters, which have man-made components and natural components, I feel it’s honestly our responsibility to attempt to understand the problem and the potential solutions better, That’s my job. That’s why I do what I do.—Scott Grayson, Tulane University

This research is made possible by a grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. The GoMRI is a 10-year, $500 million independent research program established by an agreement between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon incident and the potential associated impact of this and similar incidents on the environment and public health.

(Click to enlarge) Workers clean oil from a Mississippi beach in July 2010. (AP photo)

Preliminary results from field work and lab tests indicate two oil components — naphthalene and methylnaphthlane — are at least partly responsible for declines in insect populations in coastal marshes affected by the 2010 BP oil spill, LSU researcher Linda Hooper-Bui tells The Advocate.

(From GulfLive.com /AP) -- The mystery is why the compounds are increasing, she said.

“We have results, good information, that these are increasing and that this is an emerging problem,” Hooper-Bui said of the two compounds.

LSU professor Eugene Turner said the compounds are aromatics that should be venting into the atmosphere. Instead, some process is creating more of them in the soil than is being allowed to be released, he said.

In addition, Turner said, the problem is being found not just in heaviest-oiled areas but also in areas affected by small amounts.

Although preliminary results point to the two compounds but research continues, he said.

“We’re still teasing this out,” said LSU coastal expert Ed Overton. “We’re a long way from figuring this thing out.”

Hooper-Bui said the two compounds suspected as the cause for the decline in insect populations in the coastal marshes are known to be insecticides. She said they are widely used in mothballs because their toxicity to insects.

Hooper-Bui and a number of other researchers from LSU and other universities have been looking at ecosystemwide potential impacts from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 as part of the Coastal Water Consortium. Funding for the work has come from the National Science Foundation, the Northern Gulf Institute, the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative and two grants from LSU.

Part of Hooper-Bui’s work was to look at the impact to insects and spiders but because they are an important part of the coastal marsh food chain.

Some insects were disappearing that didn’t have much contact with sediment or water in the marsh so the researchers set up a field experiment. Crickets were placed in small cages with food and water and then floated in a cage on the marsh so the only contact they would have with the environment would be the air, she explained.

The crickets in the oiled areas died.

“It was something in the air that was killing them,” Hooper-Bui said.

The field work was followed by laboratory tests using sediment collected in 2011 and again, the crickets died.

More recently, the lab experiment was repeated for soil collected in March 2013, and the crickets on that soil again died, she said.

There were other signs of something is wrong within the more than 100 insects and spiders the researchers examined.

One example is the population decline of ants that live in the hollow stems of marsh grass starting in 2010.

“By March 2012, we were extremely hard pressed to see ants in oiled areas,” Hooper-Bui said.

In May, the ants had mating flights and she and other researchers tracked where they landed and marked the new colonies to revisit later.

“By July, all of those colonies had disappeared,” she said.

Since January, Hooper-Bui and others have been looking for ant colonies in oiled sites but haven’t found any yet, she said. Currently, researchers are looking for mating flights of ants in these areas, but haven’t found any.

“GoMRI In the news” is a reposting of articles about GoMRI-funded research (published by various news outlets). The author’s interpretations and opinions expressed in these articles is not necessarily that of GoMRI.