Monthly Archives: October 2017

Classroom MaterialsFact SheetsSea Grant Sea Grant Releases Boater’s Guide on Handling Oil and Fuel Spills: Now in Spanish, Vietnamese & Puerto Rican Spanish Brochure for boater

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team released an informational brochure just in time for the summer boating season. The one-page guide gives boaters information on how to prepare for, respond to, and report an accidental oil or fuel spill on their vessels. A Boater’s Guide to Handling Oil and Fuel Spills, which is available Read More

C-IMAGEGoMRI StudentsPeople Grad Student Rohal Examines Tiny Organisms to Understand Deep-Sea Ecosystems Melissa identifies a copepod at the Copepod workshop in South Korea. (Provided by Melissa Rohal)

Meiofauna provide important ecosystem services such as waste removal to the deep sea-floor environment and can act as indicators of ecosystem health. Because meiofauna live a largely sedentary life due to their small size and sediment habitat, they are often unable to escape an area affected by unusual disturbances, such as the Deepwater Horizon incident. Melissa Rohal is Read More

DROPPSGoMRI StudentsPeople Grad Student Xue Uses Light to Characterize Oil Plume Fragmentation Xinzhi adjusts the laser optics for particle image velocimetry experiments. (Provided by Xinzhi Xue)

Laser light and high-speed cameras can help researchers observe the behavior of oil droplets within a laboratory-simulated oil plume and interpret how the oil subsequently may move through the water column. Xinzhi Xue uses lasers to non-invasively probe inside the oil plume and get a detailed look at the oil fragmentation process. “This knowledge is crucial Read More

Audio-VideoGoMRI ScienceRECOVERResearch StoriesShort Clips (<15 Minutes) Video: New Research Tactics for Mahi-Mahi Tagging A mahi is loaded into a recovery tank after tagging. (Provided by RECOVER)

Data and pictures from before and after a disaster help us understand the impacts of an event; however, the “before” is not always available. Researchers with the Relationships of Effects of Cardiac Outcomes in fish for Validation of Ecological Risk (RECOVER) consortium have found through oil-exposure laboratory studies that the Deepwater Horizon incident may have negatively affected Read More

GoMRI StudentsPeople Grad Student Bhalerao Analyzes Food Webs of Horse Fly Larvae to Assess Marsh Health Devika and Chinmay Tikhe floating tabanid larvae out of marsh sediments. (Photo by Claudia Husseneder)

Greenhead horse fly larvae are the top invertebrate predator in the Spartinamarshes along the Gulf of Mexico coastline. Adult and larval horseflies exhibited reduced genetic variation and population declines in oiled marshes after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which suggests that these organisms could be an indicator species for post-spill marsh health. Devika Bhalerao uses DNA analyses to identify organisms Read More