An international team of researchers has found evidence that suggests human efforts to restore damaged ecosystems are not always better than simply letting nature take its course. In their paper published in Proceedings of ...
The chemical sprayed on the 2010 BP oil spill may not have helped crucial petroleum-munching microbes get rid of the slick, a new study suggests.
Environment
Nov 9, 2015
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An international team of researchers has found extremely small habitats that increase the potential for life on other planets while offering a way to clean up oil spills on our own.
Earth Sciences
Aug 7, 2014
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Whenever there is a major spill of oil into water, the two tend to mix into a suspension of tiny droplets, called an emulsion, that is extremely hard to separate—and that can cause severe damage to ecosystems. But MIT researchers ...
Materials Science
Jul 1, 2014
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In the days following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, methane-eating bacteria bloomed in the Gulf of Mexico, feasting on the methane that gushed, along with oil, from the damaged well. The sudden influx of microbes ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 25, 2012
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Scientists from the University of Bristol have developed a soap, composed of iron rich salts dissolved in water, that responds to a magnetic field when placed in solution. The soap's magnetic properties were proved with neutrons ...
Materials Science
Jan 23, 2012
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1
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected 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 ...
Environment
Aug 19, 2010
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0
An ultra-lightweight sponge made of clay and a bit of high-grade plastic draws oil out of contaminated water but leaves the water behind.
Polymers
Feb 4, 2010
2
0
Toxic chemicals produced from oil emissions and wildfire smoke have been found in muscle and liver samples from Southern Resident killer whales and Bigg's killer whales.
Plants & Animals
Dec 19, 2023
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Gigatons of greenhouse gas are trapped under the seafloor, and that's a good thing. Around the coasts of the continents, where slopes sink down into the sea, tiny cages of ice trap methane gas, preventing it from escaping ...
Astrobiology
Sep 26, 2023
0
50
An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term often refers to marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters. The oil may be a variety of materials, including crude oil, refined petroleum products (such as gasoline or diesel fuel) or by-products, ships' bunkers, oily refuse or oil mixed in waste. Spills take months or even years to clean up.
Oil is also released into the environment from natural geologic seeps on the sea floor. Most human-made oil pollution comes from land-based activity, but public attention and regulation has tended to focus most sharply on seagoing oil tankers.
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