Source: New Scientist
Author: Chelsea Whyte
It wasn’t just the coastline and the ocean surface that was drenched in oil after the Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010. Life in the deep sea took a hit, too, and many species in the region are still drastically reduced in number.
“The health of our overall oceans also requires a healthy deep sea, as the deep oceans serve vital roles in carbon cycling, marine food webs, and overall ocean function,” says Craig McClain at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. He and his colleagues used remotely operated underwater vehicles to survey the Gulf of Mexico around the site of the disaster. They did the survey in June of 2017 and compared their findings to surveys done in the two months directly following the oil spill.
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