Five Things The Gulf Oil Spill Has Taught Us About the Ocean
While researching the spill, scientists tracked deep-sea sharks, found new mud dragons, and discovered a type of ocean current
By Hannah Waters
smithsonian.com
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill is considered the largest accidental marine spill in U.S. history and a disaster for human and non-human communities along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. But the spill created an opportunity to rigorously study the effects of oil spills on the environment and public health, and to develop new technologies to fight future spills.
BP set aside $500 million to fund spill-related research, and for the past five years the independent Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) has used that funding to support the research of more than 1,200 scientists.
Along the way, these researchers have made fundamental ocean science discoveries that otherwise may never have been known. Here are five of the most interesting ocean findings that have come out of Gulf oil spill research: