Category Archives: DROPPS
Marine protists are single-celled planktonic creatures that form the base of the marine food web and perform important ecosystem services, including driving photosynthesis and the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Protist communities include energy-producing organisms, such as phytoplankton, that use sunlight or chemical reactions to generate their own food. Protists also include predators, such as microzooplankton, Read More
The Texas Gulf Coast is experiencing a rapid increase in oil refining and transport activities, which also increases the risk of spill-related impacts to its coastal bays and estuarine ecosystems. Marine researchers from several institutions converged on the Texas coast in June 2019 and conducted an intensive two-week biological survey, or BioBlitz, to establish a Read More
Oil-water interfaces, such as those formed by marine oil spills or natural ocean oil seeps, are teeming with bacterial activity. Some bacterial species in those interfaces form biofilms that help break up oil, which enhances biodegradation. The interfaces themselves can also significantly influence how bacteria behave, often trapping them or altering their natural movements. Jiayi Read More
Oil is a complex mixture of chemicals with different degradation behaviors and toxicity levels. Understanding how the compounds in spilled oil, particularly toxic compounds, change with weathering is important to predicting oil’s persistence in the environment. Meredith Evans Seeley analyzed how oil compounds are preserved or removed over time in coastal systems that have different Read More
The 2017 hurricane season was one of the most active and destructive on record and included two major storms that affected the U.S. Gulf Coast – Harvey and Irma. Scientists who lead consortia funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative are based in this area, and they shared how they and their teams prepared Read More
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
In April 20, 2010, the Gulf of Mexico had its greatest mishap in record time with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, wherein an estimated 1,000 barrels of oil (peaking at more 60,000 barrels) per day were released into the Gulf for 87 days, for a total of 3.19 million barrels for the entire duration. The Read More
The Dispersion Research on Oil: Physics and Plankton Studies (DROPPS) Consortium had another successful collaboration with the Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE) for the UT Summer Science program! We taught 3rd-4th graders about how oil spill scientists sometimes use drift cards to study oil spills to see where Read More
Jellyfish push water in and out of their bells to propel themselves forward. Researchers are investigating if and how the small underwater waves and currents created by Jellyfish movements can help break up oil spilled in marine ecosystems. The Smithsonian posted an article featuring scientist Brad Gemmell’s research about interactions of gelatinous zooplankton with oil. Read More
For Cheng Li, the beauty of our oceans is precious. He wants to protect that beauty by improving the tracking of and response to oil spills. Using a customized, self-built wave tank, he investigates the interactions between oil, dispersant, and breaking waves. Data from his wave experiments will contribute to better predictions about where and Read More
The methods used to remove the oil from the Gulf of Mexico – skimming, soaking, and dispersing – were as much in the news as the Deepwater Horizon incident itself. Three years later, a group of twenty-six middle school students conducted experiments to compare these methods as part of a week-long University of Texas Summer Read More
All the world’s a stage – literally – as oceanic, atmospheric, and geologic conditions and events come to life on a “revolving” globe. General public visitors attend a Science on a Sphere presentation at the Bay Education Center. (Photo by Jackie Hattenbach) Researchers and science educators are using visualizations of oil spills, tsunamis, and hurricanes Read More