News Releases
Natural Petroleum Seeps Release Equivalent of 8-80 Exxon Valdez Oil Spills
A new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is the first to quantify the amount of oil residue in…
Read MoreStudy Identifies Deepwater Horizon Debris as Likely Source of Gulf of Mexico Oil Sheens
A chemical analysis of oil sheens found floating recently at the ocean’s surface near the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster indicates that the source is pockets of oil trapped…
Read MoreStudy Reveals Microbes Dine on Thousands of Compounds in Oil
Thousands of feet below the bottom of the sea, off the shores of Santa Barbara, CA, single-celled organisms are busy feasting on oil. Until now, nobody knew how many oily…
Read MoreNatural Petroleum Seeps Offer Clues to the Past and the Future
Just a half mile off California’s coast near Santa Barbara, and in coastal areas around the world, natural petroleum seeps are releasing an astonishing amount of methane gas and oil…
Read MoreA Natural Petroleum Spring
Bubbles stream from vents surrounding misshapen cones formed by thick liquid oozing from the sea floor. It may sound like a hydrothermal vent field near a mid-ocean ridge, but these…
Read MoreWHOI Scientists Map and Confirm Origin of Large, Underwater Hydrocarbon Plume in Gulf
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) detected and characterized a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The work presents a forensic snapshot of the plume characteristics in June and is reported in a study appearing in the Aug. 19 issue of the journal Science.
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