In the summer of 2013, guest student Ferdinand Oberle collected samples of oil on a beach along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Each year since the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, members of marine chemist Chris Reddy’s lab have been collecting clumps of oil-covered sand and scraping weathered oil from rocks to study how long spilled oil persists in the environment, how it breaks down, and what compounds are formed as it weathers. The students gathered samples along the Gulf Coast from Pensacola, Florida to Grand Isle, Louisiana, and beyond. (Photo courtesy of Benjamin Freiberg, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
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