USF researchers troubled by layers of oil found in Gulf

A USF research vessel pulled into dock in St. Petersburg on Friday, one day after announcing researchers had found a second oil plume/Staff photo by ROB SHAW

ST. PETERSBURG – A team of scientists returned from a six-day research mission into the Gulf of Mexico this morning with an assortment of water samples and critters from the sea for tests to confirm what they fear is happening well underwater.

The R/V Weatherbird II pulled into port shortly after 8 a.m., a day after University of South Florida researchers announced they believe they have found previously undetected layers of oil deep in the waters of the Gulf.

“We did not find any black mass of liquid oil,” said Ernst Peebles, an associate professor at the school’s College of Marine Science.

“We went for several days seeing absolutely no sign of oil whatsoever on the west Florida shelf,” Peebles added. “It wasn’t until we got into the Desoto Canyon area of the Panhandle that we started to see evidence of oil.”

And what they found truly troubled them.

Scientists found evidence of dissolved hydrocarbons that they are trying to determine if they came from the oil itself or from the 850,000 gallons of dispersants that have been used to fight the gusher in the Gulf. They are invisible to the eye, but show up in tests and could eventually pose a serious concern to all kinds of marine life.

“It would indeed be a very insidious threat,” Peebles said.

At times wearing yellow hard hats and white boots, scientists studied the water some 2 miles deep and brought back 130 water samples to be tested, along with sharks, fish and other marine life. This morning, they hauled white coolers off the vessel, filled with plastic bags of small sharks, hakes, black-belly dogfish and other species.

“We were not terribly surprised, because oil is known to sink,” Peebles said. “The ramification is that what you see at the surface is not the entire story.”

It could take as long as two weeks to get the test results back. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is conducting the testing.

Scientists from USF were joined by officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Eckerd College.

While conducting tests, researchers discovered a six-mile wide layered assortment of oil about 3,300 feet underwater, some of the strongest evidence yet that the oil leak’s effects extend far beyond the slick visible on the Gulf waves.

The cloud was nearing a large underwater canyon whose currents fuel the food chain in Gulf waters off Florida and could potentially wash the tiny plants and animals that feed larger organisms in a stew of toxic chemicals, another researcher said today.

Larry McKinney, executive director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said the DeSoto Canyon off the Florida Panhandle sends nutrient-rich water from the deep sea up to shallower waters.

McKinney said that in a best-case scenario, oil riding the current out of the canyon would rise close enough to the surface to be broken down by sunlight. But if the plume remains relatively intact, it could sweep down the west coast of Florida as a toxic soup as far as the Keys, through what he called some of the most productive parts of the Gulf.

Tampa Bay/TBO

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