Bacteria made quick work of the tons of methane that billowed into the Gulf of Mexico along with oil from April’s Deepwater Horizon blowout, clearing the natural gas from the waterway within months of its release, researchers reported Friday.
The federally funded field study, published online in the journal Science, offers peer-reviewed evidence that naturally occurring microbes in the Gulf devoured significant amounts of toxic chemicals in oil and natural gas spewing from the seafloor, which researchers had thought would persist in the region’s water chemistry for years.
“Within a matter of months, the bacteria completely removed that methane,”said microbiologist David Valentine at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “The bacteria kicked in more effectively than we expected,” he said.
h/t Adrian
Dang, say it ain’t so. Of course the real threat is all the microbe farts produced…
methane munching microbes have been part of the ecosystem since about ” a billion” years ago. the MSM seemed surprised that they existed. The Gulf has been leaking petroleum for at least 150million years, pre Cretaceous.I say that since Im not sure anyone has drilled through the Cretaceous yet , the sediments being more than 30k ft.
Tangentially related: Science shouldn’t stand in the way of sound smoking policy
A new study is urging lawmakers not to let science get in the way of sound policy when it comes to laws on children’s exposure to second-hand smoke in cars.
Smoking in cars carrying children should be banned whether or not science can prove exactly how risky it is . . .
. . .
“There is no debate,” he said. “There’s much greater knowledge of the dangers of second-hand smoke than there was in the past and people, even smokers, don’t want to expose their kids in a car.”
Three countries—Mauritius, South Africa and Bahrain — have banned the practice.
———-
I’m not a smoker, but I do prefer reason to emotion. I do however like how the Gazette slipped in the Mauritius/SA/Bahrain reference.
Same thing happened with the Ixtoc I well west of the Yucatan Peninsula back in 1979.
Within five years, the ecosystem was back to normal.
Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeal it.
Petroleum seeps are natural to the area. There was a massive one in the early 1900s (no one knows for sure how large, but it was big) and there are a number of much smaller ones happening right now.
This doesn’t mean that blowouts are a good thing, but it does suggest that the gulf eco-system is equipped to handle such contamination with dispatch.
Well, i think the lesson here is obvious: we can beat global warming if we but drain the oceans and blast all the sea water into space. The microbes will eat all the atmospheric greenhouse gases and we’ll all be saved! Hurray!
Now can we Drill Baby Drill ? Oil is too expensive, could cause another steep recession.
The enviro fear-mongers blew their wad on off shore drilling fears and and … they bought proof Mother Earth knows what she is doing. (No doubt some people got hurt in the process)
Sorry, but even sda had some Spill Baby Spill irrationality on April 29 2010
Just for some perspective, at even the highest estimated oil flows, the total oil spill would be proportionally the same as one drop of oil in an olympic sized swimming pool.
Hahaha! She gets her ‘science’ news about the oil spill from an oil and gas industry website! Oh Kate, too funny.
What’s next? Suggesting kids be taught the harms of smoking from a tobacco industry website? Maybe consulting your local drug dealer on the harms of meth?
[Calling the results “extremely surprising,” researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara and Texas A&M University report that methane gas concentrations in the Gulf of Mexico have returned to near normal levels only months after a massive release occurred following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion.]
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/uoc–uta010611.php
[Microbes in the Gulf of Mexico continue to consume oil that spilled from BP Plc’s Macondo well, according to U.S. government scientists.]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-23/gulf-microbes-continue-to-consume-oil-from-bp-spill-noaa-says.html?cmpid=yhoo
Thanks for the nice lunch, B.P.
— signed, Microbes of the Gulf
BTJ You can’t get comments about the left on lefty sites HAHaHa.
When I was in Uni decades ago we were aware of oil eating bacteria. The microbiologist who figured out how to prevent the loss was going to be a very rich man if that was their option.
Hold on a minute. Wouldn’t the tons of methane released into the gulf immediately boiled to the surface and then dissipated into the air. To the best of my knowledge, methane isn’t heavier than water.
BTJ
[………Hahaha! She gets her ‘science’ news about the oil spill from an oil and gas industry website! Oh Kate, too funny.
What’s next? Suggesting kids be taught the harms of smoking from a tobacco industry website? Maybe consulting your local drug dealer on the harms of meth?………]
You don’t own a gun do you?
Hear voices?
Forest gump you ain’t!!!
Oh no … obese bacteria!!!!
A bright spot for today illustrating the scientific knowledge of the AGW community: A ‘greenie’ cohort of my brother has decided that (drum roll) ‘Global Warming’ (in scare quotes) is caused by (another drum roll) Daylight Savings Time! This allows an extra hour of sunlight to penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere gradually cooking the planet. At least he is acknowledging that the sun does affect our climate – gosh, what would happen if the whole world went to Double daylight Saving Time?
A bright spot for today illustrating the scientific knowledge of the AGW community: A ‘greenie’ cohort of my brother has decided that (drum roll) ‘Global Warming’ (in scare quotes) is caused by (another drum roll) Daylight Savings Time! This allows an extra hour of sunlight to penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere gradually cooking the planet. At least he is acknowledging that the sun does affect our climate – gosh, what would happen if the whole world went to Double Daylight Saving Time?
Sorry about the double post – I got a failure notice the first time.
For BDFT:
Yes indeedy, methane IS lighter than water and MUCH of what was released into the gulf DID make it to the surface and into the atmosphere. However, gaseous methane is also soluble in water, and whilst it was bubbling up those thousands of feet it was also dissolving into same until the water adjacent to it reached saturation.
A wise old man once said “ya think if you cut the bottom off your blanket and sewed it on the top that you’d have a bigger blanket? Daylight savings time…pshaw
BDFT There are also hydrates on the sea floor that slowly release methane. The bacteria have a constant food source and multiply to the food supply.