Recent sampling of ocean-floor sediments done by University of California-Santa Barbara geochemists have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A 3,200 square kilometer (1,235 squre miles) area around the site shows the distribution of the plume of oil leaking from the blowout as it permeated the water and then began to settle on the seafloor. The implications for animal and plant life in the water column and seafloor sediments remains unknown.
So what has happened to the remaining unaccounted for 1.4 million barrels? Some may remain suspended in the water column. Some may have eventually reached the surface and evaporated. And some may have been gobbled up by bacteria. But the remaining glop of oil covers a vast area on the ocean floor and current technology makes it virtually impossible to clean it up or recover it.
What a testament to our fossil fuel addiction.
