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Oily tidal pools

July 11, 2010

Oil washed into the West Falmouth marsh and tide pools after a 1969 spill, with disastrous consequences for these small marine animals in a tidal pool. Though the marsh now looks completely recovered, oil has persisted in the sediments, and is still affecting marine animals. Investigated by numerous WHOI researchers, including chemist Chris Reddy, director of the WHOI Coastal Ocean Institute, this spill and later spills in the area have yielded much information about oil in the environment. WHOI scientists and engineers are now lending their expertise in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.(Photo by George Hampson, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)