The Deepwater Horizon oil leak released far more than just crude oil; prodigious amounts of methane gas also spewed out of the well. This gas was responsible for many of the problems associated with the disaster. While the well was uncapped, all of that methane ended up being released into the ocean. A study in today's issue of Science, however, suggests that it never made it to the surface. Instead, a large bloom of methane-eating bacteria seems to have thrived during the leak. The authors of the new paper suggest that their results have implications for some future climate change scenarios.
The current estimates of methane released while the well remained uncapped suggest it was nearly 1010 moles of material, which suggests that the well spewed out the equivalent of the methane release of the entire Black Sea. But there was little sign of that methane at the site of the disaster; readings in that area suggest that less than 0.01 percent of the methane escaped to the atmosphere. Instead, indications were that it drifted away from the site as part of a deep water plume.
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Minki van der Westhuizen Katharine Towne Malia Jones Jennifer ODell Jenny McCarthy
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