A Big Mess Disappears?

Guess what?

All that oil that has been spewing out into the Gulf of Mexico for the past several months has suddenly gone missing...

From this ABC News article:

The numbers don't lie: two weeks ago, skimmers picked up about 25,000 barrels of oily water. Last Thursday, they gathered just 200 barrels.


Still, it doesn't mean that all the oil that gushed for weeks is gone. Thousands of small oil patches remain below the surface, but experts say an astonishing amount has disappeared, reabsorbed into the environment.

Possible reasons for this?

The light crude began to deteriorate the moment it escaped at high pressure, and then it was zapped with dispersants to speed the process along. The oil that did make it to the ocean's surface was broken up by 88-degree water, baked by 100-degree sun, eaten by microbes, and whipped apart by wind and waves.

I think it is way too early to assume that there might be no long-term effects of this in that environment, but if what some of these scientists are saying is true, then it is truly amazing what is happening in that water.

(HT: Michael Williams)