Tag Archives: Oil Spill Chemistry

Videos: Oil Degradation and Fingerprinting in the Beach Environment

Biodegradation? Chromatography? While scientists toss these terms around with no problem, they can sound like a foreign language to others.

The Deep-C consortium partnered with CPALMS, an online toolbox providing free instructional resources for educators, to create a series of videos related to Deepwater Horizon research and the Gulf Oil Observers (GOO) project.

High School Students Work Alongside Woods Hole Experts

Watch how these high school students work alongside Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution experts conducting oil spill science. A CPALMS perspective Video by Catherine Carmichael.

Don’t cry over spilled oil. Take action instead!

Learn how scientists are studying what happens to spilled oil and over time how it affects the environment. A CPALMS perspective video by Catherine Carmichael.

How Crude Oil is Formed and How it Behaves in the Environment

Chris Reddy, an oil scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and research for DEEP-C, explains how crude oil is formed and how it behaves in the environment. A CPALMS perspective Video by Chris Reddy.

Using Oil Fingerprints to Explain the Origins of Spilled Oil

Humans aren’t the only ones who get their fingerprints taken. Learn how this scientist is like a crime scene investigator using oil fingerprints to explain the origins of spilled oil. A CPALMS perspective Video by Chris Reddy.

High School Teacher Holds Class on the Beach

What could be better than having class on the beach and conducting actual research to boot? See how Shawn Walker, a marine science teacher at West Florida High School, transforms his students into scientists. A CPALMS perspective Video.

Fact Sheets: Deep-C Science and Outreach Fact Sheets

The Deep Sea to Coast Connectivity in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (Deep-C) Consortium released a series of publicly available and easy-to-read fact sheets detailing their scientific research and outreach initiatives:

Science: Deepwater Corals

What are corals? Where and how do they live? What are the threats to Gulf corals? Click here to download.

Science: The SailBuoy Project

Experimenting with a new marine device used for scientific observations in the Gulf of Mexico. Click here to download.

Science: Deepwater Sharks

Information about the bluntnose sixgill shark, one of the most common species in the Gulf. Click here to download.

Science: Tiny Drifters – Plankton

What are plankton? Why are plankton important? How did the oil spill affect Gulf plankton? Click here to download.

Science: Oil-Eating Plankton

Naturally occurring microbes in the ocean feed on the hydrocarbons in oil. Click here to download.

Science: Oil Fingerprinting & Degradation

What is oil? How does oil “weathering” occur? And what can oil samples tell us? Click here to download.

Outreach: Gulf Oil Observers

Deep-C’s citizen scientist initiative connecting high school students to ongoing oil spill research. Click here to download.

Outreach: Scientists in the Schools

Interactive visits to middle school classrooms by Deep-C scientists and educators. Click here to download.

Outreach: 2015 Annual ROV Training & Competition

Students from middle and high schools vying for ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) domination. Click here to download.

Grad Student Schwaab Investigates How Tuna and Billfish Respond to Oil

6710a — Madison Schwaab, a University of South Florida master’s student, stands in front of the gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometer holding an almaco jack liver extract. (Provided by Madison Schwaab)

Marine ecosystems provide many valuable resources for humans, including seafood and petroleum. Conservation policies that protect marine ecosystems, especially pollution and petroleum-related policies, depend on accurate scientific data about the ways different marine species experience pollution. Madison Schwaab quantifies levels of toxic oil compounds in the bile and tissues (liver, muscle, and gonad) of fifteen pelagic Gulf of Mexico fish species to better understand how oil affects them compared to other species.

Madison is a master’s student with the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science and a GoMRI Scholar with the Center for the Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems III (C-IMAGE III).

Her Path

Madison spent her childhood catching fish and blue crabs with her father on Chesapeake Bay, where she witnessed firsthand how human activities can negatively affect rivers, bays, and oceans. These experiences piqued her curiosity about quantifying those impacts. As a Temple University undergraduate student, she worked in Dr. Erik Cordes’ deep-sea ecology lab investigating how ocean acidification impacts cold-water coral physiology. She also worked at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center studying the behavioral avoidance of inland silversides in hypoxic and acidified environments. These research experiences showed her how changing conditions can negatively affect marine and estuarine animals.

6710b — University of South Florida master’s student Madison Schwaab holds a yellowfin tuna caught for subsampling and subsequent contaminant analysis. (Provided by Madison Schwaab)

Madison wanted to conduct anthropogenic-related research and started researching graduate programs in Texas and Florida, where she knew there was ongoing oil spill research. The oil spill research conducted in Dr. Steve Murawski’s Population and Marine Ecosystem Dynamics Lab at the University of South Florida intrigued her, and she reached out to him before applying for a graduate research position there. He invited her to visit during a recruitment weekend, and she immediately clicked with the lab and the university. She joined the group as a master’s student conducting GoMRI-funded research quantifying petrogenic and pyrogenic contaminant concentrations in pelagic fish.

Her Work

Madison sampled fifteen pelagic tuna and billfish species collected as by-catch during benthic research cruises (2011 – 2017) and main catch during a pelagic cruise (2018). Because the collection includes different time points and regions, she compared differences in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations between these pelagic species and across different regional, spatial, and temporal scenarios. She also used data compiled by her fellow C-IMAGE researchers to compare PAH concentrations in the pelagic species with species living in other ocean habitats.

6710c — (L-R) C-IMAGE Assistant Director Sherryl Gilbert, master’s student Brigid Carr, Ph.D. student Susan Snyder, Principal Investigator Dr. Steve Murawski, researcher Dr. Erin Pulster, and master’s student Madison Schwaab attend the opening of the University of South Florida’s Marine Environmental Chemistry Laboratory in November 2018. (Photo credit: Sean Beckwith)

Madison analyzed fish bile using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to semi-quantitatively measure PAH equivalent concentrations (parent compounds plus metabolites) of naphthalene, phenanthrene, and benzo[a]pyrene, which indicates short-term (hours to days) PAH exposure. She also prepared liver, muscle, and gonad tissue samples using the Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe (QuEChERS) extraction process and applies gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS-MS) to assess concentrations of nineteen PAHs (including 16 considered priority pollutants by the EPA) and their alkylated homologues in fish tissue, which indicates long-term (months) PAH exposure.

Only eight of the fifteen pelagic fish examined yielded enough usable data to draw conclusions. Although Madison is still interpreting her data, her early results suggest that there are higher PAH equivalent concentrations in yellowfin tuna bile than the other seven fish species. These levels were similar to concentrations observed in the benthic golden tilefish, which are considered the highest known PAH equivalent concentrations in the Gulf of Mexico. These preliminary findings represent one of the first indications that pelagic fish species can be significantly affected by PAHs deposited into the Gulf of Mexico.

“Finding similar PAH equivalent concentrations in yellowfin tuna and the golden tilefish was unexpected, because the golden tilefish is a burrowing fish and is strongly linked to sediments, where about 21% of Deepwater Horizon hydrocarbons likely settled,” she explained. “Finding significant short-term PAH concentrations in yellowfin tuna several years later suggests that they are possibly being impacted by contamination sources other than Deepwater Horizon, such as the Mississippi River and the on-going natural oil seeps or small oil spills that frequently occur in the Gulf.”

Her Learning

Madison’s GoMRI work was her first experience conducting toxicology research. Her lab mates, especially Dr. Erin Pulster, taught her a great deal about common toxicological methods and operation of analytical instruments. While her lab work focused on the finer details, she experienced the larger implications of her research through field work. “Catching target pelagic species for our oil spill research just meters away from oil rigs highlighted the connection between my research and the bigger picture,” she said. Attending the annual Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science conference helped her learn from oil spill researchers in other fields and further connect her own findings to the entire ecosystem. “Being part of GoMRI allowed me to gain a holistic perspective on Deepwater Horizon’s short- and long-term impacts on Gulf ecosystems and surrounding communities.”

Madison has an increased appreciation for transferable scientific skills, such as statistics and programming, and for opportunities that improve scientific writing and communication. She hopes to find a career where she can use her background and experiences to synthesize scientific findings and inform practices and policies that protect vulnerable ecosystems from pollution and oil contamination.

Praise for Madison

Dr. Murawski explained that Madison’s Deepwater Horizon research has equipped her with broadened skills sets for investigating key contemporary threats to marine ecosystems, especially related to chemical pollution resulting from acute oil spills. “Her work on pollution levels in large pelagic fishes of the Gulf has opened up new venues of research and provided important new insights into how the Gulf of Mexico functions,” he said. “She has a bright future in marine science and policy, wherever her career takes her.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Madison Schwaab and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals. Visit the C-IMAGE website to learn more about their work.

By Stephanie Ellis and Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact sellis@ngi.msstate.edu for questions or comments.

************

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

© Copyright 2010-2020 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

Grad Student Wigren Shows It Takes Guts to Explore How Oil Affects Fish’s Microbiomes

6688a — Maggie Wigren is a master’s student at Purdue University’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. (Photo used by permission from Pinpoint National Photography and Maggie Wigren)

The microbial community living in fish’s gastrointestinal tracts, also called the gut microbiome, are vital to their developing immune systems and can influence behaviors such as foraging. Studies conducted following Deepwater Horizon observed that crude oil exposure can shift the gut microbiome’s community structure to favor microbes that can degrade toxic oil chemicals. Determining if oil exposure triggers similar responses in other Gulf of Mexico fish species and if their foraging behaviors change is important to understanding their risk to oil exposure.

Maggie Wigren is investigating how toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in weathered oil affect the gut microbiomes and foraging behavior of sheepshead minnows, a small fish that lives in the estuarine environments surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. The presence of oil-degrading microbes in the minnows’ guts could serve as bioindicators of polluted areas and potentially decrease the bioaccumulated oil load in fish.

Maggie is a master’s student with Purdue University’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources and a GoMRI Scholar with the project Integrating Teleost Transcriptomes to Identify Ecologically Meaningful Responses Following Oil Exposure.

Her Path

6688b — Purdue University master’s student Maggie Wigren and her labmates built and maintain this tank system to house and study sheepshead minnows for oil-exposure experiments. (Photo by Maggie Wigren)

As a child, Maggie was fascinated by fish and marine environments and spent most of her childhood swimming, fishing, and wading through streams. She developed a passion for understanding and protecting natural ecosystems that inspired her to pursue an ecology and environmental science undergraduate degree at Purdue University. There, she became interested in disease ecology and ecotoxicology in aquatic habitats and accepted a graduate student position in Dr. Marisol Sepulveda’s ecotoxicology lab conducting GoMRI-funded research that investigates how different fish species respond to oil exposure.

“When I heard about the devastation that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused, I felt helpless,” said Maggie. “I’ve always been passionate about preserving and protecting natural areas, so when I found an opportunity to do research that could help inform oil spill response efforts, I was eager to start. I hope that the more we know about the broad, negative impacts of oil spills, the more our society can work towards more environmentally friendly policies and cleaner forms of energy.”

Her Work

Maggie conducted experiments to observe how oil affects microbial communities in the minnows’ guts and examine minnow foraging behaviors before and after oiling. She used a high-speed blender to thoroughly mix 1 gram of weathered Deepwater Horizon oil in 1 liter of artificial seawater, creating a high-energy water-accommodated fraction or HEWAF (a homogenous oil-water solution). She exposed 5 fish to a 5% concentration of the HEWAF solution for 7 days, changing the water daily to maintain the oil dose and repeated this process three times.

6688c — A group of female sheepshead minnows swim in the tank system designed by Purdue University master’s student Maggie Wigren and her labmates for oil-exposure experiments. (Photo by Maggie Wigren)

For the microbiome experiments, Maggie dissected and extracted DNA from the fish’s gastrointestinal tracts after the 7-day exposure. DNA analysis from 16S rRNA and shotgun metagenomic sequencing will tell her which bacteria are present and their functions. The data analysis is still ongoing, but early results show trends that suggest oil exposure alters the gut microbiome composition in sheepshead minnows and increases the abundance of oil-degrading bacteria.

For the foraging experiments, Maggie observed the number of prey items fish captured at the beginning and end of the 7-day exposure. She released 10 zooplankton (Daphnia magna) into the oil treatment and control tanks and mounted a GoPro action camera to record how many zooplankton the fish consumed within 3 minutes. Surprisingly, oil-exposed fish exhibited higher prey capture rates than control fish, the opposite of her initial hypothesis. She theorizes that the oil-exposed fish may be attempting to acquire more nutrients while in a stressed state and hopes that future studies will investigate this possibility further.

Maggie hopes that her research will help demonstrate the broad effects of oil exposure on non-game and sporting fish. “Although most people don’t think about minnows, they are an important foraging fish for other larger, more economically important fish species,” she said. “By observing oil’s effect on the minnows’ microbiome, we can create a broader toxicological profile for oil contamination in fish, which could help identify bacteria that are potential bioindicators of pollution.”

Her Learning

6688d — Purdue University master’s student Maggie Wigren uses this experimental set up to examine how oil exposure affects the gut microbiomes and foraging behaviors of sheepshead minnows. Oil-exposed (top rack) and control (bottom rack) minnows collected from the main tank system are housed in these jars for the duration of the experiments. (Photo by Maggie Wigren) Purdue University master’s student Maggie Wigren generated this high-energy water-accommodated fraction (HEWAF) of oil, which she uses to conduct oil-exposure experiments examining oil’s effect on sheepshead minnow’s gut microbiomes and foraging behavior. (Photo by Maggie Wigren)

Maggie entered Dr. Sepulveda’s lab without any toxicology or microbial ecology experience and was initially overwhelmed with figuring out how to conduct microbiome research and dealing with equipment issues. Despite these obstacles, she found support in her peers, advisor, and advisory committee, finding that talking out her struggles cleared her mind, led her to solutions, and improved her communication and collaboration skills. “The whole process of designing, executing, and analyzing my own experiment has helped me grow significantly as a scientist and become more independent,” she said.

Maggie recalls that she felt intimidated the first time she attended a large scientific conference but learned from fellow attendees that everyone experiences imposter syndrome at some point in their career. “It was very eye-opening and refreshing to listen and talk to fellow scientists in the field,” she said. “I came back revitalized and ready to tackle the rest of my project with new ideas about how to analyze my results.” She is grateful that she can contribute meaningful research towards oil spill science and ecosystem preservation as a member of the GoMRI science community.

Maggie plans to move to Vancouver, British Columbia, after graduating and pursue a career in environmental consulting, marine conservation research, or outreach that fosters scientific literacy and environmental stewardship. She feels that it is important to learn from those in fields that interest you. “Take advantage of any and all resources that come your way and expand your network of fellow scientists,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone, and don’t hesitate to ask for help when you need it. There is no shame in reaching out for support among your peers and advisors.”

Praise for Maggie

6688e — Purdue University master’s student Maggie Wigren generated this high-energy water-accommodated fraction (HEWAF) of oil, which she uses to conduct oil-exposure experiments examining oil’s effect on sheepshead minnow’s gut microbiomes and foraging behavior. (Photo by Maggie Wigren)

Maggie’s research is the first microbiome study conducted in Dr. Sepulveda’s lab, who explained that Maggie was instrumental in designing the experiment and developing and implementing the study’s different protocols, including the protocols for 16S rRNA sequencing and metagenomics. “I have watched Maggie grow as a scientist over the past 2+ years,” she said. “I think her work is unique and will advance our field. She has a bright future ahead of her!”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Maggie Wigren and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

By Stephanie Ellis and Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact sellis@ngi.msstate.edu for questions or comments.

************

Sea Grant Publication Describes Technologies for Detecting and Monitoring Marine Oil Spills

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team released a publication on technologies that complement traditional ship, satellite, and mooring-based tools that researchers use to study oil spills, including Deepwater Horizon. These complimentary technologies include Unmanned Surface and Aerial Vehicles (USVs and UAVs), Saildrones, aerial drones, drifters, blimps, balloons, and advanced remote sensing technology.

Read In the air and on the water: Technology used to investigate oil spills to learn about the capabilities of these technologies and how researchers have used them. Included are factors that scientists consider when determining which unmanned vehicle is the best fit for their research.

Read these related Sea Grant publications that give more details on oil spill detection and monitoring technologies: Underwater Vehicles Used to Study Oil Spills and Predicting the Movement of Oil.

Read these related stories describing technologies to study oil spills:

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team synthesizes peer-reviewed science for a broad range of general audiences, particularly those who live and work across the Gulf Coast. Sea Grant offers oil-spill related public seminars across the United States.

Information about upcoming Sea Grant science seminars and recently-held events is available here. To receive email updates about seminars, publications, and the outreach team, click here.

By Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact maggied@ngi.msstate.edu with questions or comments.

************

GoMRI and the Sea Grant programs of the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Mississippi-Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas) have partnered to create an oil spill science outreach program.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

© Copyright 2010- 2019 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

Why Grad Student Keller’s Marriage of Polymers and Nanoparticles Causes Oil to Break Up

6652a — Tulane University Ph.D. student Chris Keller works at the chemical fume hood, where he assembles and observes reactions between nanoparticles and polymers designed to help disperse spilled oil. (Photo by McKenna Redding)

Because oil and water don’t mix easily, oil droplets in the ocean environment tend to aggregate into larger masses, which hinders microbial degradation. Chemical dispersants used for oil spill response contain water-soluble and oil-soluble components that adhere to oil droplets and increase the oil and water’s compatibility, allowing oil to disperse more easily into the water column and enhancing microbial consumption. However, because chemical dispersants require constant energy input from waves, wind, and currents to keep the oil dispersed, they typically only slow oil’s coalescence rather than prevent it.

Chris Keller is developing a dispersant system that combines silica nanoparticles and polymer surfactants and doesn’t require energy input to generate stable oil emulsions. His goal is to identify which combination of these compounds will maximize oil entrapment and dispersion while minimizing harm to marine life.

Chris is a Ph.D. student with Tulane University’s Department of Chemistry and a GoMRI Scholar with the project Designing Nanoparticle-Based Dispersants with Improved Efficiency and Biocompatibility.

His Path

6652b — Tulane University Ph.D. student Chris Keller visually examines reactions between nanoparticles and a combination of polymers to disperse oil in water. If all of the nanoparticles settle to the bottom, it usually signals that the reaction was unsuccessful. (Photo by McKenna Redding)

Chris’s interest in science began with his Mandeville, Louisiana, high school chemistry teacher, whose passion for science and its ability to change the world inspired him. He discovered a knack for scientific research while performing basic lab experiments, often modifying the experimental conditions for efficiency. His interest in chemistry eventually evolved into a passion for polymer science.

As an undergraduate polymer science student at the University of Southern Mississippi, Chris investigated the drug delivery applications of different biopolymers in Dr. Daniel Savin’s polymer science lab. He recalls assisting Kyle Bentz, who was then a graduate student in the lab, with his GoMRI-funded research on nanoparticle-based oil dispersants. The research held great significance to Chris, who is from the Louisiana coast, where oil spills and chemical dispersants can affect the local ecosystem and marine life for years. “When I was accepted to Tulane University as a Ph.D. student, little did I know that I would be continuing that same GoMRI research under the direction of Dr. Scott Grayson,” said Chris. “By researching alternative methods to cleanup oil spills, I feel that I am contributing to measures that can help lessen their impacts and ensure that an oil spill isn’t a defining event for a region’s ecosystem.”

His Work

Chris is continuing the research of Dr. Kyle Bentz and Dr. Muhammad Ejaz investigating polymer-modified silica-based nanoparticles as a new system of oil dispersants. Chris’s team hypothesizes that once the nanoparticle system entraps the oil, the oil’s density will change so that it floats to the ocean surface for collection via skimming. This process could be repeated as many times as necessary to help spill response efforts. Chris is designing the nanoparticle system and observing the nanoparticles’ reactions with unimolecular micelles (single-molecule surfactant polymers that don’t require energy input to generate stable oil emulsions).

6652c — Tulane University Ph.D. student Chris Keller is developing an oil dispersant system that combines nanoparticles with polymer surfactant molecules. This photo depicts (left) a stock solution of the nanoparticles he uses dispersed in water and (right) phase separated oil (top) and water (bottom) layers after stirring the stock solution with crude oil for 72 hours. (Photo by Dr. Curtis Jarand)

The nanoparticle system is made up of a silica-based core with a copolymer chain attached to it that contains both hydrophobic (oil-soluble) and hydrophilic (water-soluble) polymer molecules. The hydrophobic polymer drives the entrapment of oil while the hydrophilic polymer helps disperse the oil into the water column. Chris has found that there is a delicate balance between the ratio of these two polymers that dictates if the system will exhibit the right properties for real-world application. For example, too many hydrophobic molecules could trap oil too quickly, changing the oil’s density so that it rises to the surface earlier than desired, but too many hydrophilic molecules could slow the rate of oil entrapment and reduce the amount of oil that disperses. Too many polymer molecules overall could create particles that are too large to effectively disperse the oil and may affect marine organisms.

So far, Chris has observed preliminary evidence of oil entrapment and established the minimum number of hydrophilic molecules required to disperse the oil particles in water (up to tens of milligrams per milliliter of water). He is currently adjusting the ratio of hydrophobic and hydrophilic molecules to identify combinations that will return the same or better results. To do this, he tests various nanoparticle-micelle mixtures under an inert (not chemically active) nitrogen atmosphere and observes their reactions over time. He examines if simple shaking will disperse the modified particles in water and, if so, records what concentrations are needed to prevent the particles falling to the bottom of the test vial. Each reaction’s success is determined by the amount of polymer that effectively attaches to the nanoparticle surface. He uses a centrifuge to isolate the nanoparticle system and collect the free polymers that did not attach during the reaction. Analyzing the unattached polymers can provide a rough approximation of the size of the polymers that attached to the nanoparticle surface.

6652d — A photo of The Grayson Group students and researchers at Tulane University. (Top, L-R) Oluwapelumi Kareem, Dr. Scott Grayson, and Brennan Curole. (Bottom, L-R) Chris Keller, McKenna Redding, Molly Payne, and Dr. Farihah Haque. (Photo by Jessica Stephenson)

Chris sends batches of different polymer-modified nanoparticles to collaborating labs to be analyzed for toxicity and effectiveness in entrapping oil. He constantly adjusts his experimental set up based on his colleagues’ findings on the different formulations. “At the end of the day, it’s about a real-world application. Their results help me adjust the polymer makeup to find a system that will meet our goal: the most oil entrapment with the least environmental impact,” explained Chris. “Furthermore, Dr. Savin’s lab at the University of Florida is developing a different polymer-modified nanoparticle system to test against mine to see which one yields better results.”

Once the new dispersant system’s design is complete, Chris will fine-tune the system so that industry can scale it up for real-world application. While the system is being developed with oil spill mitigation in mind, there are other potential uses of the team’s nanoparticle dispersant system. “Future applications other than dispersants are going to largely depend on how ‘biofriendly’ we can make these,” explained Chris. “For example, an undergraduate student working on his senior thesis under my guidance is examining the use of sugar-based nanoparticles. If we can utilize a different core such as sugar instead of silica, I think we could potentially see some use as drug carriers or filtration devices later down the line.”

His Learning

Dr. Grayson taught Chris to take his research one goal at a time and emphasized collaboration’s important role in achieving those goals. Being a part of the GoMRI community keeps Chris mindful of the broader implications of his research. For example, Chris’s close focus on his laboratory research sometimes caused him to forget that, while his research has applications for oil spill response, research contributing to other applications is just as important. “When I go to the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science conference, I get to see the other researchers’ perspectives first-hand and consider things that I wouldn’t have thought about on my own,” he said. “It makes me a more well-rounded researcher.”

As Chris nears graduation, he prepares his research for the next cohort of graduate students to continue. “Science is a marathon, not a sprint, and is met with a lot of ‘brick walls’ and frustration,” said Chris. “Having patience, taking a step back, and looking at it from different perspectives [makes it possible to] change the world one small victory at a time. The experiments won’t always work, but that’s the point of research.”

Praise for Chris

Dr. Grayson praised how Chris tested the team’s theory that silica nanoparticles modified with surfactant polymers could successfully stabilize oil mixtures in water. He explained that Chris’s experiments built upon previous research to include more oil dispersion processes and remove high temperatures associated with synthesizing the polymers and nanoparticles. “Chris has done a great job working on this theory,” said Dr. Grayson. “It appears in these last few months that he will finally achieve everything that we had hoped for: an environmentally friendly, non-toxic oil dispersant.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Chris Keller and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

By Stephanie Ellis and Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact sellis@ngi.msstate.edu for questions or comments.

************

© Copyright 2010-2019 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

Grad Student Montas Assesses Oil Spill Health Risks to Children During Beach Play

6627a — University of Miami graduate student Larissa Montas. (Photo provided by Larissa Montas)

The Deepwater Horizon incident affected more than 1,700 km of Gulf of Mexico coastline. Chemical compounds from the oil spill posed a risk to human health, especially children whose play behaviors often bring them in direct contact with sand and water. To better understand these risks, researchers are quantifying how children play at the beach and combining those data with the different types and levels of oil spill compounds that reached shorelines.

Larissa Montas is developing an algorithm to predict the concentrations and distributions of oil compounds along beaches. Her novel algorithm will contribute to a larger risk assessment platform that assesses cumulative and aggregate risks to children’s health from oil spill compounds. These assessments can help inform future spill response decisions, including beach closures.

Larissa is a Ph.D. student with the University of Miami’s Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering Department and a GoMRI Scholar with Beach Exposure And Child HEalth Study (BEACHES).

Her Path

6627b — The Beach Exposure and Child Health Study (BEACHES) research team. (L-R) Rosalia Guerrero (research scientist), Dr. Helena Solo-Gabriele (Principal Investigator), Lindsey Clark (master’s student), Dr. Alesia Ferguson (Co-Principal Investigator), Dr. Maribeth Gidley (research scientist), Pauline Williams (community volunteer), Lonnie Jones (community volunteer), Larissa Montas (Ph.D. student), Devon Brown, Graham Reid (community volunteer), Tanu (Uppal) Altomare (Ph.D. student), Hanna Perone (master’s student), and Kyra Rattler (undergraduate student). (Photo provided by Larissa Montas) University of Miami Ph.D. student Larissa Montas (left, blue shirt) helps collect information about children’s beach play behavior. The team videotaped children pressing their hand on a sand tray and used a digital scale to record the hand press and determine how much sand adhered to the hands. They also traced each child’s hand on paper and photographed it to measure hand surface area. Here, Montas holds the video camera while University of Miami MD/MPH student Hanna Perone (foreground) holds a hand trace and University of Houston undergraduate student Leslie Rojas assists a child participant. (Photo provided by Larissa Montas)

Larissa describes science as her “first love” and can’t recall a time when she wasn’t involved with science in some way. Growing up in a seaside town, she created strong ties to the beach. The more she learned about beach ecosystems, the more her curiosity about environmental science deepened. Later, she completed undergraduate degrees in civil and environmental engineering and a master’s degree in environmental engineering at the University of Miami. While applying to doctoral programs, Larissa received an email from one of her previous professors, Dr. Helena Solo-Gabriele, advertising a graduate research opportunity with her lab. Larissa applied and joined Dr. Solo-Gabriele’s team investigating children’s health risks to oil spill compounds in beach environments.

“I am deeply interested in exploring the integrated relationship between the environment and human health, so our team’s research was a perfect match to my interests,” said Larissa. “Children’s environmental health is a topic close to my heart, as children are more vulnerable to environmental health issues.”

Her Work

Following Deepwater Horizon, responders and researchers collected tens of thousands of seawater, sediment, and atmospheric samples. The first phase of Larissa’s research was to sort this historical data. Using the General NOAA Operational Modeling Environment (GNOME)’s predicted timing of oil spill impacts, she categorized the data by time and space: impacted sites prior to oil impact, impacted sites after oil impact, and unimpacted sites. She also assisted efforts led by Dr. Alesia Ferguson to video record (with guardian permission) children’s beach play activities and patterns to characterize children’s interactions with sand and other potential sources of oil contamination. She is currently developing an algorithm that will utilize a fate and transport model’s outputs for future predictions of concentrations of individual toxic oil compounds that might reach nearshore waters and sand.

The second phase of Larissa’s research focuses on analyzing oil compounds associated with Deepwater Horizon that were identified as toxic. Using an oil spill fate and transport model, she tracks how long it will take each compound to reach the beach environment. Then, she incorporates existing data about the compound’s physical and chemical properties to predict how much it should be degraded when it reaches the nearshore environment. “Some of the oil compounds won’t get there at all because they will be completely degraded or become airborne before arrival,” explained Larissa. “But, most of them will, and we need to know how much and what health risks are associated with those concentrations.” She uses her results to generate concentration-frequency distributions, a type of histogram that represents how often a measured concentration falls within a certain range in sand/marsh sediment, water, and tar. She then compares concentration ratios of the different compounds to the original source oil to identify changes in the oil’s overall composition by the time it reaches the beach environment.

6627c — University of Miami Ph.D. student Larissa Montas (left, blue shirt) helps collect information about children’s beach play behavior. The team videotaped children pressing their hand on a sand tray and used a digital scale to record the hand press and determine how much sand adhered to the hands. They also traced each child’s hand on paper and photographed it to measure hand surface area. Here, Montas holds the video camera while University of Miami MD/MPH student Hanna Perone (foreground) holds a hand trace and University of Houston undergraduate student Leslie Rojas assists a child participant. (Photo provided by Larissa Montas)

The third phase of Larissa’s research uses atmospheric remote sensing to estimate the impacts of toxic airborne compounds associated with Deepwater Horizon on beach environments. She assists Dr. Naresh Kumar to assess changes in remotely-sensed parameters immediately before and after the spill, collocated with meteorological conditions and adjusted using region specific regression. Using this approach, researchers can develop beach-specific concentrations of airborne compounds for future oil spill exposure studies.

Larissa’s research will contribute to an assessment platform providing health risk information for children swimming or playing at oil-impacted beaches. “Children’s behavioral patterns make them more vulnerable than adults, and they have more-intimate contact with the sand due to play activities such as burying themselves in the sand,” said Larissa. “Our risk assessment platform aims to help improve estimations about children’s exposures and risks to toxic oil compounds and inform decision makers and first responders about toxic compound concentrations when an oil slick approaches the nearshore environment.”

Her Learning

Working with Dr. Solo-Gabriele taught Larissa that the rigorous scientific process can also be an exciting, creative, and collaborative process. One of Larissa’s favorite memories was assisting with fieldwork that quantified children’s beach play activities. The team worked from early morning to late evening collecting data on over 100 children playing at four beaches in Florida and Texas. “The whole BEACHES team came together, and the PIs worked hard side-by-side with the students,” said Larissa. “It was collaboration at its best and gave me the opportunity to learn about the work that Co-PIs Dr. Alicia Ferguson and Dr. Kristi Mena are leading.”

Larissa’s journey has shown her that exploring different fields and seeking guidance from mentors are important goals for students considering a scientific career. “Students’ motivations are as varied as they are as individuals,” she said. “A good way to start is to take initiative and volunteer for a project that matches your interests. Many professors like giving advice. Don’t be afraid to seek out mentors who can help you understand where to take that first step.”

After graduating, Larissa wants to continue interdisciplinary research investigating environmental contaminants and human health.

Praise for Larissa

Dr. Solo-Gabriele said that Larissa was at the top of her list when recruiting graduate students for her GoMRI project. She described Larissa as having “an engineering mind,” praising her methodical approach to research and detailed-oriented personality. She explained that Larissa’s laboratory experience gave her an advantage when analyzing the complex chemical composition of oil in air, water, and sediments. “She understands the details of the analytical techniques and the difficulties that may occur when trying to compare the results from different laboratories,” said Dr. Solo-Gabriele. “Larissa has submitted a peer-reviewed journal article [based on her research] that provides insight to the natural background concentrations of oil spill compounds, which is useful for identifying the excess risks associated with oil spill impacts along coastal regions.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Larissa Montas and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

By Stephanie Ellis and Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact sellis@ngi.msstate.edu for questions or comments.

************

© Copyright 2010-2019 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

How Grad Student Kurpiel Uses Radium to Monitor Spilled Oil

6611a — Master’s student Matthew Kurpiel, Coastal Carolina University, pours oil and seawater into a funnel that separates the fluids. (Used with permission from photographer Jason Gonzales iamjgvisuals.com.)

Scientists can use radium isotopes, which are released from oil in seawater and decay at a specific rate, as geochemical tracers to investigate marine processes involved in oil degradation. Matthew Kurpiel is investigating how radium isotopes in surface oil slicks and underwater oil plumes release into the surrounding seawater over time. His findings will help develop a tool to determine how long oil spill material will persist in the marine environment after it is released and track where it goes.

Matt is a master’s student with Coastal Carolina University’s Department of Coastal & Marine Systems Science and a GoMRI Scholar with the project Radium Isotope Release from Oil Degradation: Development of an ‘Oil Clock.’

His Path

6611b — Coastal Carolina University master’s student Matthew Kurpiel (right) separates seawater from crude oil while his advisor Dr. Richard Peterson (left) supervises. (Used with permission from photographer Jason Gonzales iamjgvisuals.com.)

As a teenager, Matt was afraid of open water but challenged himself to go scuba diving during a family trip to Mexico. The surreal experience inspired him to pursue a science career where he could continue having exciting and challenging experiences. As a marine science undergraduate student at Coastal Carolina University, Matt assisted Dr. Richard Peterson on projects using radium isotopes as tracers for various marine processes. Dr. Peterson invited him to continue this work as a graduate student. “Many times, I recall vivid images of the Deepwater Horizon spill that were shown in the media. The memory of the horrific impacts that such a disaster can have motivates me to work towards research that can help mitigate future oil spill events,” said Matt. “This project is the culmination of an idea that Dr. Peterson has been working on for years. I’m just glad to be a part of it and learn from him and the process.”

His Work

6611c — Coastal Carolina University master’s student Matthew Kurpiel (right) separates seawater from crude oil while his advisor Dr. Richard Peterson (left) supervises. (Used with permission from photographer Jason Gonzales iamjgvisuals.com.)

Matt’s research utilizes archived oil collected directly above the Macondo wellhead and oil collected by the ROV Odysseus from a natural seafloor oil seep field (GC600). He prepared oil-seawater mixtures (1 g oil to 10 L seawater ratio, approximating hydrocarbon concentrations measured in Deepwater Horizon sub-surface plumes) for each oil type, incubated them, and observed how radium isotopes released into the surrounding seawater over time and under different conditions. The incubations included an ocean surface treatment (outdoors in ambient sunlight) or a deep-sea treatment (5° C in dark refrigerators) to control for photodegradation processes and with live or compromised microbes to control for microbial biodegradation. Matt measured radium levels at multiple time points using alpha and gamma spectrometry.

Matt focuses on the radium isotope Ra-224, one of the only radium isotopes found in oil that is abundant and detectable immediately after sample collection. His observations so far revealed that the Ra-224 release signature exhibited only minor differences between the surface ocean and deep-sea treatments. This outcome surprised Matt and his colleagues, who predicted that the combined photodegradation and biodegradation processes in surface conditions would yield much higher Ra-224 activity than sunless, cold conditions. Treatments using compromised microbes showed higher Ra-224 activity than expected, including in deep-sea treatments where lack of light and microbes should have inhibited most or all degradation. “These results were surprising, as we expected degradation processes driven by sunlight and microbes to be the main control on radium release,” said Matt. “Our results suggest that degradation processes may play some role but other factors, such as ion exchange, may be at play as well.”

6611d — The ROV Odysseus collects oil from a natural oil seep in the GC600 seep field at 1,185 meters deep. (Photo credit: Pelagic Research Services)

Matt observed that, for both oil types, Ra-224 activity typically peaked within the first 24 – 48 hours followed by a decline for the remaining incubation period. However, mixtures using Macondo wellhead oil showed consistently higher Ra-224 activity than mixtures using freshly collected oil from a seafloor seep. “We currently hypothesize that different oil sources (presumably from different subsurface reservoirs) vary in inherent radioactivity,” said Matt. “Previous literature shows that biodegradation does happen in the oil reservoir itself before the oil ever touches the water column, so one theory is that the oil from the natural seep field is already further degraded than Deepwater Horizon oil as a result of their source reservoirs.”

Matt will use the radium measurements to derive an activity ratio representing how much time oil spends in seawater based on the radium’s degree of decay. He is also developing a methodology for determining the time-dependent radium signatures of different oil sources. His research will support the project’s goal to create a conceptual model (dubbed the “oil clock”) that uses the activity ratios to determine oil’s exposure time in the ocean. “The oil clock tool can aid researchers in other fields, such as those studying the timing of microbial responses to oil spills,” said Matt. “It also provides oil spill cleanup managers with a critical piece of information that will help them make the best decisions on cleanup strategies.”

His Learning

6611e — Coastal Carolina master’s students Matthew Kurpiel (left) and Elana Ames (right) collect bucket cast samples of an oil sheen above the GC600 seep field. (Provided by Matthew Kurpiel)

Dr. Peterson helped Matt think like a scientist, conduct objective investigations, and communicate his research with other scientists and the public. Matt credited Dr. Peterson’s faith in him as key to helping him grow as a scientist. He also treasures Dr. Peterson’s professional and personal advice, which he expects will help in future endeavors.

Matt admired how scientists within the GoMRI community help one another, such as when ECOGIG Principal Investigator Dr. Mandy Joye served on his thesis committee and lent her expertise to their project. Matt also recalled how grateful he and his colleagues were when, during preparations for Tropical Storm Gordon, Dr. Leila Hamdan and her team safely secured gear that they stored at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Marine Research Center.

“None of this research would be possible without a massive amount of help. Dr. Peterson, his current graduate students (my labmates), the captain and crew of the R/V Point Sur, the Pelagic Research Services ROV team, and GoMRI’s funding for this project all made this research and the experiences I have had as a result possible,” said Matt. “I want to extend my gratitude to all these people and groups, and probably many more that I am forgetting right now, for all the effort they put into making this project a success. Science is never a one-person job.”

6611f — Dr. Richard Peterson of Coastal Carolina University, his students, and a colleague from Dr. Mandy Joye’s University of Georgia research lab during an oil collection cruise. (L-R) Dr. Richard Peterson and students Charlotte Kollman, Alec Villafana, Matthew Kurpiel, Elana Ames, Andy Montgomery (University of Georgia), and Jianna Wankel. (Provided by Richard Peterson)

The two weeks that Matt spent at sea collecting oil samples was his most memorable experience where he dealt with the strenuous conditions aboard a research vessel, including seasickness, unusual sleep schedules, and showering during 11-foot swells. However, it was worth it to Matt to get first-hand deep-sea research experience. “The Gulf of Mexico is a beautiful, biodiverse, and economically critical body of water for both the United States and Mexico. Looking through the eyes (i.e., cameras) of the ROV was incredible. The sights that my colleagues and I were able to see on those two cruises are something that very few people get to experience,” he said. “Through this research, I’ve been given the opportunity to work towards protecting the Gulf, and I’m very grateful for that opportunity.”

His Future

Matt hopes to find a research position that includes travel, working in a dynamic setting, and being an active environmental steward. He suggests that students considering a scientific career get involved with research as early as possible, saying that the real learning happens through hands-on experience. “Whether that experience is in fieldwork, lab work, computer work, or a combination, working with real data and real samples to answer questions is what environmental science is all about,” he said. “Don’t let high-level mathematics and technical jargon intimidate you, like they initially did me. If you can think critically, proactively solve problems, and work hard, you can learn anything you put your mind to.”

Praise for Matt

Dr. Peterson praised Matt’s critical and creative thinking skills and his ability to make the research his own as he discovered novel insights and developed creative hypotheses. “Matt’s enthusiasm drives him every single day to learn more, try new analyses, and improve his skills. He never bends to adversity – in fact, he uses it as motivation!” said Dr. Peterson. “I’m proud of the scientist that Matt has become while working on his master’s thesis through this GoMRI project!”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Matthew Kurpiel and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

By Stephanie Ellis and Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact sellis@ngi.msstate.edu for questions or comments.

************

© Copyright 2010-2019 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

Grad Student Deng Investigates How Marine Microbes Move When Oil is Present

6604a — Ph.D. student Jiayi Deng prepares a bacterial suspension at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. (Provided by Tianyi Yao)

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 Deng tracks different bacteria movement patterns at the point where oil and water meet to explore key processes involved with interactions between oil spills and marine microorganisms. Information that she is uncovering about bacterial propulsion, structure, and interactions with interfaces and other bacteria can help researchers design bio-mimic microrobots and develop strategies to guide their motion towards oil spills for oil collection.

Jiayi is a Ph.D. student with the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a GoMRI Scholar with the Dispersion Research on Oil: Physics and Plankton Studies III (DROPPS III) consortium.

Her Path

Jiayi’s parents are engineers who sparked her desire to solve real-world problems at a young age. She described chemical engineering as an art that uses fundamental ideas and physics to interpret natural processes and can be applied to all aspects of human life, including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and energy and environmental engineering. Jiayi completed a chemical engineering undergraduate degree at Dalian University of Technology and a chemical and biomolecular engineering master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania.

As a master’s student, Jiayi learned about soft matter (such as liquids and colloids) while working with polymers in Dr. Daeyeon Lee’s Soft Materials Research and Technology lab. She later took a course taught by Dr. Kathleen Stebe, a co-principal investigator with the GoMRI-funded DROPPS consortium, that described how surface energy can dominate some interfacial phenomena and what that means for designing functional materials.

“I was fascinated by the complex structures formed on interfaces and how these phenomena can be explained using the physics and fundamental concepts of colloid and interface science,” said Jiayi. “I contacted Dr. Stebe and gained a great opportunity to join her GoMRI research into bacterial dynamics at the oil-water interface as a Ph.D. student.”

Her Work

Jiayi studies the swimming behavior of lab-cultured Pseudomonas aeruginosa (strain PAO1), a marine species that forms an elastic biofilm at the oil-water interface and consumes hydrocarbons. She conducts her experiments in a 1-centimeter cylinder with an aluminum bottom half and a Teflon top half that intersect in the middle, creating a planar interface. After adding bacteria suspended in an aqueous solution and then hexadecane to form an oil-water interface, she uses an upright bright-field microscope and a high-speed camera to observe the interfacial interactions and capture one-minute videos at 60 frames per second.

6604c — University of Pennsylvania chemical and biomolecular engineering Ph.D. student Jiayi Deng.

Next, Jiayi interprets the bacteria’s position in each frame using a multiple particle tracking algorithm to determine their motion. She observes several metrics that provide insight into bacterial swim behavior: swim speed, the curvature of their circular path, how fast they complete a circular path, time spent moving forward and backward, and the dynamics of different bacteria types. So far, she has observed four distinct trajectories affecting how bacteria move: (1) movement driven by collision, (2) swimming in curly paths, (3) swimming in pirouette motions, and (4) interactions with other bacteria that enter and exit the interface freely.

Jiayi developed a method to analyze hydrodynamic interactions between the bacteria and the interface. She places passive tracer particles at the interface before adding hexadecane and then measures the correlated motion between bacteria and passive tracers to determine how active bacteria displace tracer particles. “This displacement field shows how bacteria interact with passive colloids (inactive suspensions of particles) and small molecules,” explained Jiayi. “By measuring their correlated motions, we can directly measure the hydrodynamic ﬂow ﬁeld around the swimming bacteria at small time scales.”

6604d — This diagram shows University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. student Jiayi Deng’s experiment set up. She uses a 1-cm cylinder made of aluminum and Teflon to recreate an oil-water interface in the lab and analyzes how the interface alters bacterial movements. (Provided by Jiayi Deng)

Using this method, Jiayi found that swimming microbes greatly enhance interfacial mixing by a factor of three. She observed two main dynamics: (1) bacteria that are trapped at the interface perform curly, diffusive, and pirouette motions and (2) bacteria that freely enter and exit the interface closely interact with the trapped bacteria. “The persistent curvilinear trajectories (i.e., curly or pirouette trajectories) of interface-trapped particles differ signiﬁcantly from motions in the bulk. Interface trapping makes these motions quite stable, creating a convective flow around the swimmers,” explained Jiayi. “These microswimmers can generate ﬂows in both the interface and the surrounding phases, breaking the oil spill into smaller droplets that are easier for microbes near the interface to digest.”

Her Learning

Dr. Stebe helped Jiayi understand the value of being passionate and thinking creatively beyond the original research goal, which typically becomes broader as an experiment develops. Jiayi and her colleagues discovered additional bacteria behaviors at the interface related to their adhesion state and hydrodynamical interactions with the oil-water interfaces. “We were excited by their different modes of motion and studied these motions using hydrodynamics and interfacial science, but we also wanted to explore their applications on interfacial transport,” said Jiayi. “Interacting with people from other fields and breaking the patterns and traditional ways of thinking helped us reach more creative solutions.”

Her Future

Jiayi hopes to find a post-doctoral position in academia where she can continue conducting chemical or biological engineering research.

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Jiayi Deng and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals. Visit the DROPPS website to learn more about their work.

By Stephanie Ellis and Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact sellis@ngi.msstate.edu for questions or comments.

************

© Copyright 2010-2019 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

How Grad Student Niles Gets to Know Crude Oil at a Molecular Level

6550a — Sydney Niles holds a jacketed beaker containing Macondo oil on water after photo-irradiation in the Atlas solar simulator (right). (Photo credit: Stephen Bilenky)

When an oil slick is exposed to sunlight, photo-oxidation processes break the oil down and incorporate oxygen into the petroleum molecules. When the incorporated oxygen reaches a certain amount, the petroleum can dissolve in water and potentially affect marine organisms and ecosystems. Sydney Niles is investigating how photo-oxidation alters the oil’s molecular composition and if that process forms toxic water-soluble oil compounds that may affect environmental and public health. Her research may help the response community better understand oil’s molecular-level effects on ecosystems and communities and inform future clean-up and restoration efforts.

Sydney is a Ph.D. student with the Florida State University Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and a GoMRI Scholar with the project The State-of-the-Art Unraveling of the Biotic and Abiotic Chemical Evolution of Macondo Oil: 2010-2018.

Her Path

6550b — (L-R) Sydney Niles, Dr. Ryan Rodgers, and Dr. Martha Chacon at Florida State University’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab). (Photo credit: Stephen Bilenky)

As a child, Sydney was curious about how things work and enjoyed finding the answers in her science classes. She discovered a love for chemistry in high school, when she learned that chemical reactions can explain the molecular-level activities behind phenomena such as color changes in oxidized metals. As an undergraduate chemistry major at the University of Michigan, she gained lab experience while working on a Parkinson’s study and later in an environmental research lab focusing on analytical chemistry. She was amazed that scientists could use electron microscopes and analytical techniques to clearly observe micron-size aerosol particles and determine which elements were present. The experience sparked her desire to use analytical chemistry to benefit the environment and public health.

Sydney joined Dr. Alan Marshall’s research group at Florida State University as a graduate student hoping to work with the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory’s mass spectrometers (instruments that can measure the mass of individual compounds). She began working more closely with Dr. Ryan Rodgers after deciding to focus her research on petroleum applications.

6550c — Dr. Martha Chacon (left) and Sydney Niles (right) stand next to the custom-built 9.4 Tesla FT-ICR MS used for molecular-level analysis of petroleum compounds. (Photo credit: Stephen Bilenky)

“Growing up in Michigan, I loved being in nature and taking summer trips to the Great Lakes, where we have beautiful beaches and clean, clear water. I couldn’t imagine an event like Deepwater Horizon happening to the ecosystems I enjoyed back home,” said Sydney. “I was initially wary about working with petroleum, as I have always been passionate about wildlife and taking care of the planet. However, I realized Dr. Rodger’s group was also focused on environmental applications involving petroleum, and I became passionate about using the tools at my disposal to contribute to GoMRI’s research goals.”

Her Work

Sydney mimics in situ oil photo-oxidation in the lab using a solar simulator and oil collected directly from the Macondo well during spill response. She analyzes the oil before and after irradiation using Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS). This process describes oil samples on a molecular level and allows her to compare oil compounds present before and after sunlight exposure. Since molecular composition is closely tied to oil’s tendency to aggregate and form emulsions and deposits, identifying the compounds present after irradiation can help determine how petroleum will behave in the environment. She conducts similar analyses on oil sheens and tar balls collected from oiled beaches and compares them to lab-irradiated samples. She found that lab-irradiated samples strongly resemble those collected from oiled beaches but do not resemble lab-generated samples created using biodegradation. This suggests that sunlight created oxygenated compounds identified in field samples rather than processes associated with oil-degrading bacteria.

6550d — (L-R) Dr. Alan Marshall, Sydney Niles, and Dr. Ryan Rodgers stand in front of the 21 Tesla FT-ICR MS used to analyze photo-oxidized oil samples. (Provided by Sydney Niles)

So far, Sydney has observed that photo-oxidation forms oxygenated oil- and water-soluble compounds that are not present in the samples prior to irradiation. Some of the oil-soluble compounds act like surfactants that cause oil slicks to swell with seawater and form strong, mousse-like emulsions. The emulsions’ oil- and water-soluble components are difficult to separate, which can impede clean-up efforts. “Typically, the densities of oil and water are different enough that you can easily scoop up an oil layer without disrupting the water layer,” she explained. “Separating the oil and water is much more difficult if an emulsion has formed (imagine shaking up oil and vinegar dressing and then trying to isolate the two layers). These mousses can be several feet thick, and the incorporation of water makes them heavier and increases the volume of material that needs to be cleaned up.” While both oil- and water-soluble compounds contain potentially toxic hydrocarbons, water-soluble compounds are of specific interest to Sydney’s research because they travel more freely throughout marine ecosystems.

6550e — Sydney Niles holds an oil sample at the 2018 National High Magnetic Field Laboratory open house. (Photo credit: Leda Eaton)

Sydney will test the toxicity of water-soluble compounds formed through the irradiation process using microtox bioassays, adding bioluminescent bacteria to a water sample containing the irradiated compounds and measuring luminescence at given time points. Luminescence will decrease when bacteria are killed by toxic compounds, allowing her to correlate luminescence with toxicity in the sample. “Petroleum hydrocarbons have known toxicity, and we are curious to see if they are released into the environment as water-soluble compounds after photo-oxidation,” she explained. “Understanding how different weathering processes contribute to the oil’s chemical and physical changes in the environment is the best way to plan better clean-up strategies for future spills.”

Her Learning

Sydney’s experiences conducting GoMRI research often reminded her of why she came to love chemistry. She recalled an experiment that placed dark brown oil into a solar simulator for several days, transforming it into a light brown fluffy emulsion with a peanut butter consistency. She viewed the samples in the FT-ICR and saw dramatic changes in the oil molecules after photo-oxidation. “These results were just as fascinating to me as my high school chemistry class, where a reaction represents how molecules change and a physical change is also observed,” she said.

Her Future

6550f — Sydney Niles presents a poster about the formation of ketone-containing photo-oxidation transformation products in petroleum at the 2018 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science conference. (Photo credit: Huan Chen)

Sydney hopes to continue researching petroleum and the environment with an industry or at a national lab. She suggests that students considering a scientific career should participate in undergraduate research before pursuing graduate school, “Research is very different than classes, so make sure you like doing research before applying to graduate school.” She explains that finding a research project that sparks true passion in you is the best motivator for a science student. “If you are doing something you feel is important for society or the environment, you will be much more motivated in the lab,” she said. “Dr. Rodgers is very passionate about how our research can impact human health, animal health, and the environment, which helped me to see the bigger picture every step of the way.”

Praise for Sydney

Dr. Marshall recalled that Sydney immersed herself in the research from the moment she arrived at Florida State University. He describes her as a multi-tasker who often works on several projects at once, including mastering the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory’s custom-built FT-ICR MS. Her research has led to 14 poster and oral presentations at major scientific conferences, and her Ph.D. dissertation promises to yield multiple journal articles. “Her first paper, soon to appear in Environmental Science & Technology, provides definitive evidence that ketones and aldehydes generated in weathered petroleum essentially derive completely from photo-oxidation, not biodegradation,” he said.

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Sydney Niles and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

By Stephanie Ellis and Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact sellis@ngi.msstate.edu for questions or comments.

************

© Copyright 2010-2019 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

Grad Student Mullane Puts Oil-Degrading Microbes Under Enormous Pressure

6530a — Kelli Mullane’s poster titled “Insights into the Adaptation of Hydrocarbon-Degrading Microbes to Life at High Pressure: The Role of Motility and Chemotaxis” won an Outstanding Research Award at the Southern California Branch of the American Society of Microbiology (SCASM) 2019 meeting. (Provided by Kelli Mullane)

There are currently over 30 active deep-sea drilling platforms and more than 600 areas where oil naturally seeps from the Gulf of Mexico seafloor. A massive microbial response coincided with the Deepwater Horizon subsurface oil plume, leading researchers to question how pressure may have impacted the hydrocarbon degraders. Kelli Mullane is investigating how high-pressure and low-temperature affect oil-degrading microbes’ ability to detect and move toward hydrocarbon compounds. Her research will help inform how scientists and responders apply bioremediation rates to models of deep-sea hydrocarbon fate and transport.

Kelli is a Ph.D. student with the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a GoMRI Scholar with the project Role of Microbial Motility for Degradation of Dispersed Oil.

Her Path

Kelli grew up dreaming of becoming a marine biologist but struggled to decide which direction to take. As an environmental science undergraduate student at Rutgers University, she gained hands-on experience working in a marine biology lab studying African cichlid fish. She had just left this lab group when she was invited to complete a George H. Cook Scholar Honors Thesis, which required her to participate in ongoing lab research.

6530b — Kelli Mullane utilizes a high-pressure microscope system developed by collaborator Dr. Masayoshi Nishiyama to study how high pressure affects microbial motility. (Provided by Kelli Mullane)

“A program director told me to search the Marine Biology department’s website for anything I thought was interesting, and I came across Dr. Costantinto Vetriani’s Deep-Sea Microbiology lab studying extremophiles (organisms that thrive in extreme conditions) at deep-sea hydrothermal vents,” said Kelli. “My microbiology knowledge was limited, but Dr. Vetriani took a chance on me and today I’m working as a Ph.D. student in a microbiology lab at one of the world’s leading oceanographic institutions.”

Kelli wanted to continue studying extremophiles in graduate school and discovered Dr. Douglas Bartlett’s high-pressure microbiology lab at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Their GoMRI-funded research investigates how the high pressure at the Deepwater Horizon site affected the movement of oil-degrading microbes. She was intrigued about using molecular and physiological approaches to answer questions about high-pressure environments.

“Imagine 200 elephants standing on the tip of your thumb. That’s how much pressure these deep-sea microbes experience, yet they are able to grow, divide, and interact. That’s when my curiosity kicked in!” said Kelli. “The idea that something so small survives and excels under extreme environmental conditions that would easily kill a human is mind-boggling to me.”

Her Work

6530c — Kelli uses multiple pressure vessels in the walk-in cold room to simulate low temperature for microbial growth and motility studies. (Provided by Douglas H. Bartlett)

Kelli investigates how high hydrostatic pressure and low temperature influence the motility (independent movement) and chemotaxis (movement towards or away from something) of deep-sea hydrocarbon-degrading microbes. She and her colleagues work with pressure-tolerant microbial strains isolated from the Gulf following Deepwater Horizon. Her findings will help explain how pressure influences microbial bioremediation rates and inform deep-sea hydrocarbon fate and transport models.

“It’s not surprising that the microbes that responded to Deepwater Horizon are pressure-tolerant rather than piezophillic (pressure-loving),” she said. “Deepwater Horizon pressures were approximately 10 – 15 MPa, which is relatively quite low considering the high pressures our lab studies. There are natural oil seeps at much deeper depths than Deepwater Horizon, and the potential for a future anthropogenic oil spill in much deeper waters is definitely there. We wanted our research to look at Deepwater Horizon-relevant pressures as well as pressures present at greater depths.”

6530d — The Douglas Bartlett lab team, 2019. (Provided by Kelli Mullane)

Kelli’s first experiment examined how high pressure and low temperature affect microbe motility. She worked with Kyoto University’s Dr. Masayoshi Nishiyama, who developed a small high-pressure microscopy chamber with glass windows. Kelli exposed microbes in the chamber to pressures equaling or greater than Deepwater Horizon conditions and low temperature (7°C) and recorded their movement using a high-resolution microscope. She analyzed the collected video for quantitative changes in the number and speed of swimming bacteria and observed that both factors significantly decreased microbe motility, though temperature had a greater impact on motility than pressure.

Kelli’s chemotaxis experiments will assess if in situ pressure levels inhibit microbes’ movement towards hydrocarbons (decreasing their ability to degrade hydrocarbons efficiently) or enhance it (making deep-sea biodegradation more efficient). “Researchers have investigated differences in chemotaxis-related gene expression at atmospheric and high pressure, but nobody has directly measured increased or decreased chemotaxis activity under high-pressure conditions,” she said. Kelli is developing a method to adapt previous chemotaxis studies for high-pressure research. She also plans to use transposon mutagenesis to obtain motility and chemotaxis mutants, which may help her identify genes and gene clusters important for high-pressure motility and chemotaxis.

Her Learning

6530e — Kelli Mullane. (Provided by Kelli Mullane)

Working in Dr. Bartlett’s lab, Kelli has learned that researchers need to wear many hats. Her roles included mentoring seven undergraduate students, conceptualizing her own projects and fellowship applications, troubleshooting new protocols, and making sure the lab is well-stocked. “There is a lot that falls on my shoulders as the only Ph.D. student in the lab,” she said. “While it’s been a ton of work, it’s also made me the scientist I am today, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.”

Kelli realized the value of the GoMRI science community during the 2018 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science (GoMOSES) conference, her first time connecting with researchers from many fields. “Getting a full sense of the community that gathered to study this oil spill was really exciting for me,” she said. “I was overjoyed to return to GoMOSES in 2019 and share the progress I’d made over the last year.” Kelli’s oral presentation at the 2019 GoMOSES conference was awarded a James D. Watkins Student Award for Excellence in Research.

Kelli believes that STEM outreach and science communication are extremely important to a scientist’s success. She currently acts as the volunteer coordinator for the Scripps Community Outreach for Public Education (SCOPE) program. The program offers free campus tours to foster scientific curiosity and environmental stewardship, provides STEM education opportunities to youth and the public, and helps graduate students improve their scientific communication and outreach skills. Kelli is also the lead coordinator for the Scripps Student Symposium (S³), a one-day conference that allows graduate students from diverse scientific backgrounds to present and discuss their research and engage in interdisciplinary collaboration.

Her Future

Kelli hopes to find a post-doc position that balances teaching and lab work so she can expand her skills and develop her long-term goals. She emphasizes to younger students that it’s okay to not know exactly what interests you, “Try something, jump in, and get your feet wet. If you realize along the way that that particular research field isn’t for you – that’s okay! Move on to a new opportunity until you find where your passion lies.”

Praise for Kelli

Dr. Bartlett said Kelli has tremendous organizational and leadership skills, including those associated with lab operations and mentoring undergraduate students. He described her as a gifted communicator able to relay her science to other researchers and to the public. “Kelli’s work performing high-pressure microscopic analyses of the motility behavior of oil-degrading Gulf of Mexico bacteria has provided an important new perspective on the factors that influence oil degradation in the deep sea.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Kelli Mullane and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

By Stephanie Ellis and Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact sellis@ngi.msstate.edu for questions or comments.

************

© Copyright 2010-2019 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

New Sea Grant Fact Sheet Answers Dispersant FAQs

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team released a product that concisely summarizes recent science regarding how dispersants work, how they are used, and how they affect sea life. The fact sheet also includes information on existing policies for chemical dispersants and how dispersants were used during Deepwater Horizon.

Read Frequently Asked Questions: Dispersant Edition and learn about dispersant-related research and how scientists are investigating how laboratory-based results relate to the ever-changing conditions in nature.

By Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact maggied@ngi.msstate.edu with questions or comments.

************

Information about upcoming Sea Grant science seminars and recently-held events is available here. To receive email updates about seminars, publications, and the outreach team, click here.

************

GoMRI and the Sea Grant programs of the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Mississippi-Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas) have partnered to create an oil spill science outreach program.

Grad Student Bociu Digs into How Long Buried Oil Persists in Sandy Beaches

6506a — Ioana Bociu holds a salt marsh core while conducting research at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. (Photo credit: Dr. Ryan Moyer)

Petroleum hydrocarbons buried in sandy beaches are protected from tides and UV light and, thus, may persist longer in the environment than oil on the beach surface. As a graduate student, Ioana Bociu’s research focused on determining the degradation rates for large sediment-oil clusters buried in Florida beaches following Deepwater Horizon. Her findings will help inform environmental managers about the persistence of buried oil in the environment, which could affect recovery after an oil spill.

Ioana, who recently completed her graduate studies, was a master’s student with the Florida State University Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science. During that time, she was a GoMRI Scholar with the project A Systems Approach to Improve Predictions of Biodegradation and Ecosystem Recovery in Coastal Marine Sediments Impacted by Oil Spill.

Her Path

6506b — A standardized agglomerate sample inside a mesh tea strainer used during the biodegradation experiment. (Provided by Ioana Bociu)

Growing up in Romania and then the United States, Ioana was curious about and interested in nature and conservation. She began her undergraduate studies at Florida State University with a double-major in International Affairs and Japanese, but felt drawn to environmental issues. She switched her major to Environmental Science and began taking environmental science, geology, and oceanography classes. Her first class with Dr. Jeffrey Chanton got her interested in the carbon cycle and the need for filling gaps in ocean science research. Later on, a class with Dr. Ian MacDonald introduced her to oil biogeochemistry and Ph.D. candidate Brian Wells. She told Wells she wanted to do volunteer laboratory work, and he invited her to assist with his research investigating oil biodegradation in the Gulf of Mexico under Dr. Markus Huettel.

After completing her undergraduate degrees, Ioana conducted field work at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute for two years, which solidified her passion for carbon cycle research and sparked her desire to pursue graduate school. “When I had the chance of returning to Dr. Huettel’s lab, I was very enthusiastic to begin the GoMRI project as a master’s student,” she said. “I enjoy doing environmental research and learning about natural processes and mechanisms. My drive comes from wanting to understand what is happening in the environment after a long-term disturbance like the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout.”

Her Work

6506c — A lab vial containing an aggregate sample after being concentrated to 1 mL for GC-MS analysis. (Provided by Ioana Bociu)

Shortly after the oil spill, the Huettel team conducted an experiment using 100 round metal tea infusers filled with homogenized, weathered oil-sand mixtures (agglomerates) collected from Florida beaches. They buried the agglomerates in Florida beaches in sets of ten in sand at 10-50 cm depth at 10-cm intervals, retrieved the agglomerates at pre-determined intervals over 3 years, and then froze the samples until analysis.

Ioana’s team analyzed the agglomerates for weight loss and change in diameter, which could indicate microbial biodegradation of the oil. A noticeable change in the agglomerates’ color over time prompted Ioana and her team to conduct a color and fluorescence analysis. They applied an elemental analyzer coupled to an isotope ratio mass spectrometer to evaluate temporal changes in carbon content and carbon type (stable isotopes) in the agglomerates. Using a gas chromatograph coupled to a gas mass spectrometer, the team assessed temporal changes in the samples’ petroleum hydrocarbon compositions. Because environmental samples can contain thousands of compounds, Ioana and her team focused only on hydrocarbons considered harmful to humans by the Environmental Protection Agency and the International Agency of Research on Cancer. In total, her team evaluated 30 saturated hydrocarbons and 33 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

Based on these analyses, Ioana estimated that the golf-ball-sized aggregates buried in beach sands would degrade within 3 decades. She further observed that the half-lives (the time required for a quantity to reduce to half its initial value) of saturated hydrocarbons varied between 100 – 568 days and correlated to carbon chain length, with longer (heavier) carbon chains degrading more slowly than shorter carbon chains. The half-lives of PAHs varied between 94 – 836 days, depending on the compound. In comparison, reference agglomerates kept in the dark for approximately 7.4 years without sediment exposure degraded three-times more slowly than agglomerates buried in situ.

6506d — (L-R) Dr. Peter Berg, Tom Bartlett, Dr. Markus Huettel, Amelie Berger, Alireza Merikhi, and Ioana Bociu during a trip to the Florida Keys to conduct field work. (Photo credit: Keys Marine Lab)

“The most critical part of our study is understanding the rate of degradation of buried oiled material, as most studies address oil degradation only in surface sediments. Buried material can persist for longer periods,” explained Ioana. “The more we can learn about what is going on in the environment, the better prepared we can be in the future. A significant part of my motivation comes from wanting to help resolve future issues by providing useful information to the greater public.”

Her Learning

Working in Huettel’s lab had a significant impact on Ioana’s growth as a scientist. Analyzing sediment-oil agglomerates involved a sophisticated extraction and measuring process that required a team effort to complete. This teamwork taught Ioana how to effectively interact with other researchers. She also gained leadership experience while teaching undergraduate students involved with the oil extraction process about the procedures and problem-solving techniques. Ioana’s conversations with Dr. Huettel had a great impact on her growth as a researcher, “Dr. Huettel was very patient with me, as there were quite a few times I walked into his office with a nervous laugh, struggling with something. I realized that verbalizing what I was thinking helped a lot in solving the issues I had. From brief conversations with him, I was able to proceed with the task at hand.”

6506e — Ioana Bociu presents her thesis defense. (Provided by Ioana Bociu)

Presenting her research at the 2018 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science conference was an especially memorable experience for Ioana. Although she initially felt intimidated by the many experienced researchers present, she found that the conference community was extremely supportive and provided helpful feedback, leaving her feeling revitalized and ready to tackle the next steps of her master’s work.

Her Future

Ioana completed her master’s degree in spring 2018 and is searching for a government agency position conducting research on coastal or carbon cycle topics, broadening her experience and becoming a well-rounded scientist. She said that science students should consider the direction they want to go and the sacrifices they are willing to make at every step of their career. “There will be monotonous days when you have to redo samples or go through large batches of data, but in my opinion the reward of having data that can tell us something we didn’t know about Earth really pays off,” said Ioana. “As with everything in life, there are pros and cons – you just have to learn to find happiness in your choices.”

Praise for Ioana

6506f — (L-R) John and Liliana Bociu (Ioana’s parents), Dr. Markus Huettel, and Ioana Bociu at Ioana’s thesis defense. (Provided by Ioana Bociu)

Dr. Huettel praised Ioana’s enthusiasm and motivation, stating that her attitude had an immediate and positive affect on everyone in his lab. He said that Ioana optimized the hydrocarbon extraction line beyond factory-specified efficiency and became the lab’s expert in running the GC-MS. He explained that she kept a cool head throughout the group’s research and impressed him with her ability to evaluate the complex data sets produced by the GC-MS, despite frequent software crashes. “I guess she could eliminate any research frustration as she honed her aerialist skills while practicing and performing,” he joked.

Huettel noted that when the lab brought on undergraduate students, Ioana became their dedicated supervisor. “It was great to see how, even at this early stage of her career, she managed her own lab group, making sure that high-quality standards were maintained, work was completed on time, and that everybody always stayed well-hydrated,” he said. “She is a born leader, fun to work with, and a role model for her peers.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Ioana Bociu and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

By Stephanie Ellis and Nilde Maggie Dannreuther. Contact sellis@ngi.msstate.edu for questions or comments.

************

© Copyright 2010-2019 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

GoMRI-Sponsored Special Issue of Current: The Journal of Marine Education

5702 Outreach coordinators from Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) consortia partnered to produce a special issue of Current: The Journal of Marine Education, published by the National Marine Educators Association (NMEA). The GoMRI-sponsored special issue – titled “Special Issue Featuring the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative: Research Resulting from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill” – features synthesis articles on oil spill science and educational resources that educators can use to incorporate oil spill science into their curriculums. The goal of the issue is to convey the scientific process using the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and GoMRI as an example.

Click here for a free PDF copy of the issue (hosted with permission from NMEA).

The special issue includes:

A Current Log (forward) from GoMRI Research Board Chair Dr. Rita Colwell
An introduction highlighting the issue’s goals
Descriptions of each of the GoMRI-funded consortia + links to external communications partners
Five main articles discussing: (1) where oil went after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; (2) the story of marine oil snow; (3) the spill’s impacts on organisms and habitats; (4) technological advancements resulting from the spill and the GoMRI investment; and (5) a feature on data sharing, data transparency, and the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC).
Lesson plans, classroom activities, and other educational resources related to the research discussed

Jessie Kastler (Consortium for Oil Spill Exposure Pathways in Coastal River-Dominated Ecosystems, CONCORDE), Katie Fillingham (GoMRI Management Team), Sara Beresford (Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf consortium, ECOGIG), and Teresa Greely (Center for the Integrated Modeling and Analysis of the Gulf Ecosystem, C-IMAGE) served as co-editors and co-authors for the special issue.

Laura Bracken (Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment, CARTHE), Murt Conover (Coastal Waters Consortium, CWC), Emily Davenport (ECOGIG), Dan DiNicola (formerly Relationships of Effects of Cardiac Outcomes in Fish for Validation of Ecological Risk consortium, RECOVER), Sandra Ellis (GRIIDC) and Rachel McDonald (Alabama Center for Ecological Resilience, ACER) also served as co-authors.

Permission has been granted to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to reprint the special issue of Current: The Journal of Marine Education featuring the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (Vol. 33, No. 1, Winter 2019) published by the National Marine Educators Association (NMEA) ©2019. For more information about the NMEA, please visit www.marine-ed.org.

**********

Grad Student Viamonte Puts Pressure on Microbial Oil Degradation

6443a — Juan Viamonte. (Provided by C-IMAGE)

When the Deepwater Horizon incident occurred, not much was known about how conditions in the deep sea would affect oil biodegradation. Juan Viamonte uses high-pressure reactors that simulate conditions at depth to observe microbial degradation and help predict what might happen should another deep-ocean oil spill occur.

Juan is a Ph.D. student with the Hamburg University of Technology’s Institute of Technical Biocatalysis and a GoMRI Scholar with the Center for the Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems II (C-IMAGE II).

His Path

Juan discovered his love for science when he was eighteen and searching for a career path. Unsure of what he wanted to study, he chose chemistry on a rather unorthodox basis – because a girl he liked was studying chemistry. “When I was in high school, many people already knew that they wanted to be, but I had no clue. I didn’t know that I wanted to be a scientist my whole life – I guess you could say science found me!” Juan laughed. He began a chemical engineering degree at the University of Zaragoza in his hometown in Spain. However, he believes he truly fell in love with his work while conducting undergraduate research at the University of Denmark. There, Juan discovered an exciting “new world” with many opportunities to share research and learn and grow as a scientist, inspiring him to pursue a master’s degree.

6443b — Juan Viamonte uses high-pressure reactors made from stainless steel and bronze to cultivate hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria at high pressures. (Image provided by Martina Schedler)

Juan completed his master’s in chemical and bioprocess engineering at the Technical University of Hamburg (TUHH). He was already working on his Ph.D. in chemistry there when his advisor Dr. Andreas Liese received GoMRI funding and offered him a graduate position researching biodegradation under high-pressure conditions. Juan accepted, thinking about how several past oil spills had significantly impacted the Spanish coastline’s flora and fauna. “One day we’ll have to turn to renewable energy, but right now humanity depends on crude oil,” said Juan. “I’m interested in what is going to happen in the crude oil industry once we reach a point where we can’t extract any more or have to do dangerous things like fracking to extract it. Many problems are arising from these more extreme methods, and I want to help understand all of this dynamic change.”

His Work

Oil-degrading microbes require oxygen to metabolize oil compounds. Juan and fellow C-IMAGE graduate students Steffen Hackbusch and Nuttapol Noirungsee combine microbes collected near the Deepwater Horizon site with oil and seawater inside high-pressure reactors that simulate conditions at 1,500 meters depth and 4° C. Juan observes the oxygen consumption of microbes and monitors their biodegradation process. When oxygen depletion, he assumes that the microbes have consumed all the oil that they can. Juan then uses gas chromatography mass spectrometry to analyze the reactor’s contents to determine the amount of oil that the microbes degraded.

Juan explained, “Imagine that you put in one drop of crude oil at the beginning of the process, and after one month the microorganisms have finished eating the oil. Well, the microbes don’t eat all of the oil – they only eat [certain compounds in it]. If you can determine how much of the oil has been consumed in that time period, you can predict what may happen to the crude oil in a realistic oil spill scenario.”

6443c — Concentration profiles for target hydrocarbons before and after biodegradation at different pressures: n-alkanes and terpenoids (top) and BTEX and PAH (bottom). (Provided by C-IMAGE)

Juan is incorporating other variables, such as methane gas and Corexit dispersant, into his high-pressure experiments to learn how microbial oil degradation may change under different conditions. He also developed a high-pressure system that can be regulated to 4,000 m depth to test and compare possible differences in microbial degradation between 1,500 and 4,000 m. Juan’s experiments are ongoing, but he plans to develop prediction models based on his data that account for these biodegradation variables. “Before Deepwater Horizon, we didn’t know how quickly oil was going to degrade at high-pressure. Now, we have a hint,” said Juan. “With many other deep-water oil ventures planned for the future, I hope my research can help us estimate what percentage of oil would be degraded and to what extent if this or a similar accident happened again.”

His Learning

Juan listed teamwork, interdisciplinary collaboration, and knowledge sharing as the most important lessons he has learned through his GoMRI research. Being a member of a large consortium, he networked with scientists across many fields and learned the value of communication. “If we don’t share this knowledge, we aren’t going to grow as humans or as scientists,” said Juan. “The most important thing about science is you cannot hide a secret. We are discovering how nature works – communication is essential.” Dr. Liese commented that Juan reflects these values in the way he conducts his research, saying “Juan is a very open-minded person, who is always watching out to integrate [with our collaborative] partners.”

6443d — The Institute of Technical Biocatalysis group in 2017. (Provided by Juan Viamonte)

Juan also discussed how learning about the biological aspects of his work opened his eyes to a broader scope of his research. Trained in chemical engineering, Juan had a limited background in biology but was fascinated when he learned that certain microorganisms bloomed in the presence of oil because they were able to consume and degrade it. “I was used to taking Chemical A and Chemical B and a solvent and mixing them all together to get a result. I wasn’t really aware that those actions would cause organisms to do all of these really cool things. It was an exciting realization for me!”

His Future

Juan hopes to continue his research after graduation. Whether his scientific career is in industry or academia, he wants to continue pursuing what he calls the most exciting part of his career – crude oil research. He advises that students considering a scientific career follow a similar mindset. “Whatever it is that makes you happy, chase it. Don’t be convinced by society what an acceptable or more worthy career is. In the end, you’ll be happier and more successful doing something you love than doing something you think you ‘should’ be doing.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Juan Viamonte and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals. Visit the C-IMAGE website to learn more about their work.

By Stephanie Ellis and Maggie Dannreuther. Contact sellis@ngi.msstate.edu with questions or comments.

************

© Copyright 2010-2018 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

Grad Student Seeley Investigates the Longevity of Toxic Oil Compounds in Coastal Environments

6396a — Meredith Evans Seeley and Dr. Hernando Bacosa maintain the Py-GC-MS machine. (Provided by Meredith Evans)

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 hydrographic activity levels. Her research will help determine which coastal environments are more likely to retain toxic compounds and require more attention from responders.

Meredith was a master’s student with The University of Texas at Austin’s Marine Science Institute and a GoMRI Scholar with the Dispersion Research on Oil: Physics and Plankton Studies (DROPPS I & II) consortium.

Her Path

6396b — An oil slick near one of Meredith’s sampling sites in Grand Isle, Louisiana. (Photo by Brad E. Rosenheim)

Meredith grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast and loved learning how different systems work in her science classes. She discovered an interest in marine science during a scuba diving trip with her older brother. The ocean and coral reefs they visited were unlike anything she had ever seen, and she wanted to learn everything about the marine world.

As an undergraduate at the University of Oklahoma, Meredith worked in a lab investigating invasive aquatic species and was able to travel the country conducting coastal restoration projects. After completing a biology bachelor’s degree, she knew she wanted to study threats to ocean health, so she applied for and entered the master’s program in marine science at the University of Texas at Austin. There, she worked in Dr. Zhanfei Liu’s lab researching Deepwater Horizon oil’s chemical evolution in coastal Louisiana for the DROPPS consortium.

6396c — Meredith Evans Seeley presents her research at the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation’s 2015 conference. (Provided by Meredith Evans Seeley)

“I’ve always been most motivated by what makes logical sense to me. The oceans play a critical role in the functionality of our climate, so logically we should preserve the integrity of the oceans as best we can,” said Meredith. “Truthfully, though, I am also a very empathetic person. When I see that species and ecosystems are at risk, I really sympathize and want to help fix the problem. These fit together to make me keenly interested in understanding threats such as oil spills and protecting the Gulf for future generations.”

Her Work

Meredith initially focused on the weathering of petroleum hydrocarbons in oil-soaked sand patties, tar, and oil sheens collected from three different coastal environments: a high-energy beach front, a low-energy sandy inlet, and a very-low-energy back-barrier marsh. She measured the concentrations of individual oil compounds, including n-alkanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and alkylated PAHs, in samples using gas chromatography (GC).

6396d — Meredith Evans Seeley accepts the James D. Watkins Award for research excellence at the 2015 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science conference. (Provided by Meredith Evans Seeley)

She observed that the magnitude of hydrocarbon depletion was most influenced by the environment’s hydrographic activity, with high-energy environments exhibiting significantly higher hydrocarbon depletion than lower-energy environments. The very-low-energy marsh environment consistently exhibited high concentrations of the same chemicals that experienced depletion in other environments over time, suggesting that oil compounds from sources other than the Deepwater Horizon incident accumulated into patties, tars, and sediments. Her results suggest that oil chemicals may be preserved for longer time periods in low-energy marsh environments than in high-energy environments, potentially threatening marine organisms and coastal ecosystem health.

“This research can be used to prioritize the type of shorelines we protect in future oil spills based on how likely they are to retain toxic compounds over time,” said Meredith. “However, it is important to recognize that petroleum is a very complex mixture, and traditional analysis techniques can identify only about 25% of compounds in Deepwater Horizon crude oil.”

6396e — Meredith Evans Seeley talks to a local news company about the DROPPS research at UTMSI. (Provided by Meredith Evans Seeley)

Meredith turned her focus to utilizing a unique analysis technique called ramped pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) to improve traditional hydrocarbon analysis. Py-GC-MS uses high-temperature pyrolysis to extract compounds within different temperature ranges from samples right before GC analysis without any sample preparation. “With this technique, we can achieve the same traditional analysis results while also gaining insight into high-molecular-weight or polar compounds that are difficult to identify,” she said. “In particular, we can use the oxygen output in the high-temperature zone (>370 °C) to estimate concentrations of oxygenated hydrocarbons, which previous studies suggest might be more bioavailable to marine species.”

Her Learning

Dr. Liu taught Meredith many scientific principles, but she was most influenced by his belief that one must always address “what’s new?” and formulate research questions to yield results that add something to the scientific community. Networking with other researchers at conferences and annual GoMRI meetings pushed Meredith to think about her research in new ways to present her work effectively. “Conferences motivated me to talk with scientists outside of my usual circle so that I could broaden my research goals and ideas through collaboration,” she said. “These connections and experiences, as well as learning under Dr. Liu, afforded me many benefits that I still reap today.”

Her Future

6396f — Meredith Evans Seeley and her advisor Zhanfei Liu at her master’s defense reception. (Provided by Meredith Evans Seeley)

Meredith is currently a Ph.D. student at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science researching microplastic pollution. During her DROPPS research, she became curious about using Py-GC-MS to study microplastic polymers and found that there are many similarities between plastic and petroleum pollutants, including complex environmental fates.

She says it is important for students who are pursuing science not to be shy. Rather than feeling intimidated or being afraid to ask questions, she found that the best way to learn and grow as a scientist is to ask about potential opportunities. “The scientific community is the most supportive working environment I could imagine. Don’t be too timid to make those connections by asking to collaborate or just asking for help,” she said. “If you try to get involved with research that excites you, I guarantee someone will help you get there.”

Praise for Meredith

Dr. Liu described Meredith as one of the top graduate students he has ever worked with and praised her organization, communication, and research skills. Liu highlighted Meredith’s ability to communicate complicated data in simple language, which he finds to be a rare skill among early-stage graduate students. He believes these skills contributed to her winning the James D. Watkins Award for Excellence in Research during the 2016 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science conference and her invitation to present a GoMRI webinar the same year.

6396g — The Liu research group celebrates Dr. Liu’s tenure at a local restaurant. (L-R, top) Nick Reyna, Hernando Bacosa, Jason Jenkins, Jiqing Liu, and Kaijun Liu. (L-R, bottom) Shuting Liu, Zhanfei Liu, and Meredith Evans Seeley. (Provided by Meredith Evans Seeley)

Liu said Meredith made significant contributions to the university’s broader community impacts when she worked with a K-12 program at Port Aransas Elementary School. He also praised her work as a summer teaching assistant, noting that she organized his course’s entire lab component. “In her teaching experience, Meredith demonstrated superb skills in organization and great attention to detail, he said. “She clearly is one of the top TAs I have ever seen, and without her excellent work I would not have been able to do it!”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Meredith Evans Seeley and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals. Visit the DROPPS website to learn more about their work.

************

Fact Sheet: Sea Grant Releases Publication on Microbes and Oil Degradation

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team released a publication that explains the role that microbes play in using oil as an energy source and removing it from the environment.

The 8-page brochure Microbes and oil: What’s the connection? describes how these microscopic organisms can have a large-scale effect by quickly degrading oil in water and how different factors influence the rate that oil is broken down. It also describes how the microbes’ behavior can differ depending on their species, the type of oil they encounter, and the place they live in the marine environment. Included in the publication is what scientists are learning about how man-made response efforts such as chemical dispersants affect microbial oil degradation.

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team synthesizes peer-reviewed science for a broad range of general audiences, particularly those who live and work across the Gulf Coast. Sea Grant offers oil-spill related public seminars across the United States.

Information about upcoming Sea Grant science seminars and recently-held events is available here. To receive email updates about seminars, publications, and the outreach team, click here.

************

GoMRI and the Sea Grant programs of the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Mississippi-Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas) have partnered to create an oil spill science outreach program.

© Copyright 2010- 2018 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

Grad Student Lichtler Examines Mammalian Cell Response to Oil Exposure

6343a — Rebecca discusses future research plans. (Photo by Rick Olivier)

Oil contains thousands of different compounds that each affect the environment and living organisms differently. While some compounds have been well-studied, there are exponentially more that have not. Rebecca Lichtler conducts toxicity, gene expression, and gene mutation studies on oil-exposed mammal cells to determine if and how different oil compounds affect cell health.

Rebecca is a Ph.D. student with Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and a GoMRI Scholar with the project Toxicological Properties of Specific Aromatic Hydrocarbons Isolated from Fresh and Aged Crude Oil from the Deepwater Horizon Spill.

Her Path

Rebecca’s parents are scientists who sparked her early curiosity about scientific research. She began her journey as an undergraduate student at Tulane University studying cell and molecular biology, but felt like something was missing. Hoping to get involved in science that had a deeper connection to human health, she switched to the university’s public health program and changed her minor to cell and molecular biology. During a foundations course in environmental health, Rebecca met Dr. Jeffrey Wickliffe and took an undergraduate research position in his lab. As she neared graduation, Wickliffe invited her to apply for a doctoral student position in his lab conducting GoMRI-funded research, which she did after entering the School of Public Health’s environmental health sciences program.

“Of all the undergraduates that I’ve had experience with, Rebecca was far and away the most dedicated,” recalls Wickliffe. “I don’t think this department has ever had a Ph.D. student come straight out of an undergraduate program, but she’s probably one of the top Ph.D. students we have in the department right now. It has set the bar so that other [professors] might be less averse to taking on Ph.D. students coming directly from undergraduate studies.”

Her Work

6343b — Rebecca prepares PAH stock solutions. (Photo by Charles Miller)

Rebecca conducts oil exposure experiments on mouse lung cells, which represent a common route of exposure (respiration), and on liver cells, the organ most associated with metabolizing toxic chemicals. She uses three methods to analyze different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and determine the most effective and efficient techniques for quantifying toxicity. “We’re trying find a balance between convenience and accuracy. Convenience is important because we get the information in a reasonable amount of time for a reasonable amount of money, but we also need that information to be as reliable and detailed as possible,” said Rebecca. “If an oil spill happens we can take a sample of the oil, break down the compounds, and know which ones are the most toxic that we need to worry about.”

The first approach uses a cytotoxicity test to determine how different compounds affect the cells’ ability to grow and survive after exposure. She exposes the cells to individual compounds for 6 hours followed by a 72-hour recovery period. Then she treats the cells with a pink fluorescent dye (sulforhodamine B) and uses a spectrophotometer to determine the amount of fluorescence. The proportion of color corresponds to healthy cells, which will have more color than cells whose growth was slowed or stopped by PAH exposure. She compares results between treatments to determine each tested compound’s relative toxicity.

6343c — Rebecca subcultures mouse liver cells in preparation for a PAH-exposure cytotoxicity assay. (Photo by Rick Olivier)

The second approach uses a gene expression test to measure toxicity. Certain genes that metabolize toxic compounds (CYP1A1 and CYP1B1) are known to be upregulated, or more expressed, when cells are exposed to PAHs. Rebecca isolates the cells’ RNA (the expressed part of the DNA) and uses quantitative polymerase chain reaction to detect if CYP1A1 and CYP1B1 expression is increased after PAH exposure, which would indicate that exposure was significant enough to trigger the upregulation.

The third method involves genetic mutation assays, which require that cells recover for one week after exposure to allow mutations to become apparent. Lipids and proteins that appear on the cell surface make up the cells’ membrane. However, if the gene producing that protein is mutated, the proteins will not appear. Rebecca treats exposed cells with antibodies that “stain” protein markers and make them detectable using a flow cytometer. The more cells that lack a protein marker, the more mutagenic effects the PAH compound had on the cells. She plans to compare these results to the cytotoxicity results to determine if the number of mutations correlate with the growth inhibitions observed in her cytotoxicity studies.

The mutation assays are still in their early stages, but Rebecca is already seeing interesting results. The cytotoxicity experiments revealed a wide variation of toxicity and identified the oil compounds with a greater toxic effect than other compounds. However, the gene expression tests did not show those significant differences in toxicity. “The degree of upregulation does not significantly vary between compounds, regardless of their toxicity,” explained Rebecca. “This suggests that the gene expression test may not be a useful tool to determine the extent of toxicity.”

Rebecca hopes that her research will help identify which compounds will have the most significant human health impacts. “Being in New Orleans surrounded by so many people that are involved with the Gulf day-to-day and meeting people whose lives were affected after the spill has shown me how important this work is to people’s everyday lives,” she said. “It’s the whole reason I got into this field and makes my work really gratifying.”

Her Learning

One of Rebecca’s most valuable experiences working in Wickliffe’s lab has been to expand her own learning by teaching others. Their lab often includes inexperienced undergraduate researchers, and Rebecca finds that teaching them forces her to confront her own understanding of the techniques and conceptual framework. “If you can’t answer someone else’s question, then you don’t know it well enough yourself,” she said. “For me, the most helpful way of learning is actually teaching!”

Her Future

Rebecca hopes to continue working in research, perhaps in a post-doc position, and eventually become a professor with her own lab. She says that students interested in a scientific career should get involved in labs as early as possible. “A lot of students think that they have to work in a lab for free just to get any experience, but there are many supported positions available, even if it’s not in your dream field,” she said. “I’ve learned something from every lab I’ve been in even if it didn’t necessarily have to do with environmental health, whether it’s a technique or a way of thinking or a concept. Don’t stress if it’s not your dream topic – you’re going to learn something.”

Praise for Rebecca

Dr. Wickliffe describes Rebecca as a talented researcher who is able to quickly master difficult methods and protocols, pays attention to detail, and fosters a solid understanding of experimental design. “She knows when to use positive and negative controls, and she’s not averse to repeating experiments to verify and validate her findings.” He also praised her collaborative skills, highlighting her ability to offer constructive feedback to others while absorbing and valuing others’ opinions about her own work.

Dr. Charles Miller, the project’s principal investigator, describes her as one of their department’s most promising students, noting her strong work ethic such as working on a task before it has been assigned and eagerly accepting new ones. “She has a mix of the right personality traits to be a good scientist. I’ve seen her progress in learning to think critically about problems, ask the right questions, and formulate a plan to approach those questions,” he said. “People with all the right signs come along every now and then, and it’s like a nugget of gold when you find one. Anybody would be lucky to have her working in their lab.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Rebecca Lichtler and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

************

Grad Student Shi Uses Chemical Fingerprinting to Investigate Oil in the Water Column

David uses mesocosms to simulate conditions in the natural ocean environment. (Photo credit: ADDOMEx)

Crude oil contains tens of thousands of hydrocarbons, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that create unique chemical fingerprints for different types of oil. Dawei “David” Shi uses geochemical analysis techniques in mesocosm studies to track these fingerprints, observe how they change over time, and investigate how dispersant affects PAH concentrations in the water column.

David is a Ph.D. student with Texas A&M University’s Department of Oceanography, a researcher with the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group (GERG), and a GoMRI Scholar with the Aggregation and Degradation of Dispersants and Oil by Microbial Exopolymers (ADDOMEx) consortium.

His Path

David’s parents encouraged his early interest in science as a child growing up in southern China where his father was a physical oceanography professor. He became interested in environmental science after visiting coastal cities as a middle school and high school student. These cities were located in the fastest-developing region of China, and the local environment suffered as a result.

David attended the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology where he completed a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in environmental science. David’s application to Texas A&M University’s oceanography Ph.D. program caught the attention of Dr. Terry Wade, who thought that David’s scientific background would be perfect for his research investigating microbes’ role in oil sedimentation and degradation. Shortly afterwards, David began his Ph.D. work as a member of Wade’s lab.

His Work

While oil contains many hydrocarbons, only PAHs produce a strong fluorescent signature. PAHs typically represent a relatively fixed percentage of total petroleum hydrocarbons, allowing researchers to estimate the concentration of dissolved oil in a water sample based on its PAH concentrations. This measurement is called an estimated oil equivalent (EOE).

David takes fluorescence measurements to identify the presence of PAHs in his samples. (Provided by David Shi)

David investigates the role of microbes in oil sedimentation and degradation using mesocosm experiments to simulate the ocean environment. The ADDOMEx team prepares water-accommodated fractions (WAFs) and chemically enhanced WAFs (CEWAFs) by adding Macondo surrogate oil or surrogate oil plus Corexit 9500 (1:20 ratio, consistent with EPA recommendations) to seawater and filling twelve 120 L mesocosm tanks with these mixtures. The EOE in the mesocosms is 0.2-0.7 mg/L or ppm for WAF treatments and 39-81 mg/L or ppm for CEWAF treatments.

Then the team adds microbes collected with a plankton net from Galveston Bay and the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (an open ocean site in the Gulf of Mexico) to the mesocosm tanks. They collect water samples at the beginning of the experiment and every 24 hours for 72 – 96 hours thereafter and determines the EOE using total scanning fluorescence, an analytical technique that can selectively screen samples for PAH presence.

“It only takes approximately five minutes to process a sample using this technique, and it provides an approach to quickly determine the oil concentration in situ,” said David. “The main drawback of the fluorescence technique is that it provides few details about the composition of these PAHs, because their fluorescence signatures are very similar.”

David uses gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to fill in the missing information about the PAH compositions in the samples. His early results showed that low molecular weight (LMW) and high molecular weight (HMW) PAH concentrations reduced at about the same rate when dispersants were present. In trials without dispersants, LMW-PAHs vanished in about one day while HMW-PAHs persisted longer, with some compounds barely diminishing after four days. David said that this observation is important because HMW-PAH compounds are more carcinogenic than LMW-PAHs.

David believes that his preliminary results suggest that dispersant may alter the removal of PAH compounds from the water column, and he is working to characterize the nature of those alterations. He plans to conduct more mesocosm experiments that focus on the entry and removal of PAHs from sediments. “Hopefully, we will find out how much of these PAHs get into sediment and how much is biodegraded in situ,” he said. “Whether dispersants enhance oil biodegradation is still not clear, but it is an important issue and I hope my research can contribute to our understanding of it.”

His Learning

David’s research experiences have shown him the importance of cross-field training to an environmental science career. Because he analyzes data primarily from a chemistry perspective, he felt “enlightened” when he heard other researchers discuss the results in a biological context. He has enjoyed the poster sessions during Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science conferences because presenters provided insights into his work. “People from different scientific backgrounds walked by and discussed my poster with me,” he explained. “Not only did I enjoy making connections to fellow scientists, sometimes the discussion itself was really inspiring and encouraged me to think outside the box.”

David (back row, far left) and the ADDOMEx research team in June 2016. (Provided by David Shi)

His Future

David plans to pursue a post-doc position in China followed by an academic or industry career that would allow him to use his education and expertise to improve China’s environmental conditions. He advises students considering a scientific career to engage in a wide range of sciences, “One should have a very broad understanding of all natural science fields, rather than simply focusing on one’s own discipline.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like David Shi and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals. Visit the ADDOMEx website to learn more about their work.

************

© Copyright 2010- 2017 Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) – All Rights Reserved. Redistribution is encouraged with acknowledgement to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Please credit images and/or videos as done in each article. Questions? Contact web-content editor Nilde “Maggie” Dannreuther, Northern Gulf Institute, Mississippi State University (maggied@ngi.msstate.edu).

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 to understanding oil spill impacts and recovery and is potentially relevant to geophysical and engineering applications ranging from fuel spray in aerospace propulsion systems to inkjet printing,” he said.

Xinzhi is a Ph.D. student in Johns Hopkins University’s Mechanical Engineering Program with focus on fluid mechanics and a GoMRI Scholarwith the Dispersion Research on Oil: Physics and Plankton Studies II (DROPPS II) consortium.

His Path

Xinzhi conducts his research in John Hopkins University’s wind tunnel and wave tank laboratory. (Provided by Xinzhi Xue)

Xinzhi’s parents, who are both engineers, sparked his interest in science. He conducted experiments with his father as a child, such as creating a paper pot capable of boiling water. Those small but fascinating scientific activities and his first trip on an airplane at age six were the greatest triggers for Xinzhi’s love of science. “It was rare at that time for kids to experience [a plane trip], because we live in a small town near the border between China and Russia,” he said. “That trip was a summation of all the [earlier] science experiments. I was amazed by everything.”

The laser set up in operation as former postdoc David Murphy and fellow Ph.D. student Kaushik Sampath monitor the results in the background. (Provided by Xinzhi Xue)

Xinzhi took an introductory fluid dynamics class as an exchange student at Purdue University and was amazed at the wide range of applications. He completed his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at China’s Harbin Institute of Technology and applied to the Ph.D. program in fluid dynamics at Johns Hopkins University where Dr. Joseph Katz is a co-Principle Investigator of a Deepwater Horizon oil spill study. Xinzhi was eager to apply his studies to a real world problem with which he personally connected. “My grandparents and parents were in the petroleum industry. Eventually life brought me petroleum-related research,” he said. “It was devastating to see the Gulf of Mexico get tremendously oil polluted during [Deepwater Horizon], not to mention the platform workers who were killed in the explosion. I felt a sense of responsibility as a researcher and engineer to make better and safer designs and provide data for predicting oil fate so responders could make well-informed decisions.”

His Work

Xinzhi analyses data from his plume experiments in his office at Johns Hopkins University. (Provided by Xinzhi Xue)

Subsurface oil blowouts create turbulent oil plumes that quickly break up into droplets, which either rise to the surface or become trapped in the water column. Xinzhi’s previous experiments conducted alongside Dr. David Murphy and Kaushik Sampath found that when a crude oil plume interacts with the surrounding water moving around its escape point, the plume that forms consists of whirlpool-like flows that significantly affect how oil droplets are distributed. When mixed with chemical dispersant, crude oil plumes generate dramatically smaller droplets that are more easily entrained in large-scale vortex structures. His current research focuses on better understanding the mechanisms driving plume fragmentation.

Xinzhi illuminates the oil plume with a laser and then uses florescent and particle image velocimetry to observe the distribution of the plume’s oil phase and calculate the flow velocity field inside and outside the plume. When analyzing liquid-liquid flows (such as crude oil in sea water), optical diagnostics are limited when the two liquids’ refractive indexes (the extent that light bends when entering a material) are mismatched and cause optical distortions. Xinzhi avoids these limitations using surrogates for oil and water that have matching refractive indices. This method allows him to observe the center of the plume and quantify the oil fragmentation process in detail.

Simultaneous images of the plume depict a) oil phase fluorescence, b) velocity and vorticity distributions, and c) overlaid distributions of oil phase (white) and the strain rate magnitude. (Provided by Xinzhi Xue)

He has found that as oil plumes develop, they often entrain ambient water, which then becomes encapsulated inside oil ligaments and forms hollow, water-filled oil droplets that his team refers to as “Russian doll” droplets. These multilayer droplets often act significantly different than simple droplets because their changed buoyancy affects their movement through the water. Xinzhi said that the subsequent transport of multilayer droplets is distinct from the surrounding oil and that dispersion models should account for this phenomenon. “The presence of Russian doll droplets can change the surface area between oil and water, making them potentially important when considering the gas diffusion and heat transfer aspect of oil droplets in the subsurface environment,” he explained.

Xinzhi hopes that his previous research on dispersant and oil plumes can help improve concentration guidelines for future dispersant deployments. His work could also provide experiment data and dynamics for liquid atomization, droplet breakup, and collision statistics, which could help future responders better understand oil breakup and how previously unexplored phenomenon, such as “Russian doll” droplets, affect the oil fragmentation process.

His Learning

Xinzhi operates the towing tank carriage. (Provided by Xinzhi Xue)

The most valuable lesson Xinzhi learned from his advisor is the importance of doubt. When presenting Katz with his experiment plans, Xinzhi faced questions from Katz about the logic behind his plan and its potential faults. Although the process was often stressful and frustrating, it taught him how to improve as a researcher. “It is that spirit of doubt and curiosity that leads us to concrete facts and drives people closer to the truth,” he said. “I now always ask myself those same probing questions.”

One of Xinzhi’s favorite memories is when he showed Katz the jet fragmentation data he collected using a high-magnification high-speed camera. It was the first detailed quantitative data of the plume’s center and best representation of the Russian doll droplets. Katz’s first reaction was to praise the beauty of the images before addressing their scientific aspects. Xinzhi explained, “Nothing compares with nature revealing its beauty before your eyes for the first time. It gave me a great appreciation for my work after all those late nights in the lab.”

His Future

An overlaid image depicts the distribution of oil phase (white) and velocity vector (blue). Red circles identify significant entrainment inside the larger coherent structure (green circles). (Provided by Xinzhi Xue)

Xinzhi hopes to apply the technology and management skills he gained through his Ph.D. and GoMRI research to a position in academia, consulting, or industry. He wants to inspire the next generation of scientists the way that science and engineering inspired him. Xinzhi related his aspirations to musical conductor Benjamin Zander’s theory that a conductor’s power comes from his ability to make others powerful and put a shine in their eyes. “I’ve seen Hopkins professors’ shining eyes when talking about their research,” he said. “I hope I’ll also be someone who has shining eyes and makes other peoples’ eyes light up.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Xinzhi Xue and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals. Visit the DROPPS website to learn more about their work.

************

Sea Grant Publication Summarizes Where Deepwater Horizon Oil Went

Click to download pdf…

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team released an informational publication that discusses the locations where approximate amounts of oil went after the Deepwater Horizon spill.

The publication Deepwater Horizon: Where did the oil go? summarizes what researchers have discovered about where the spilled oil traveled and what processes carried it along its path. Included are response actions and natural biological processes that affected oil fate. Even though scientists have discovered much concerning the fate of the oil, 11 to 25 percent of it remains as unaccounted.

Contact a Sea Grant oil spill specialist to receive email updates about seminars and publications.

************

GoMRI and the Sea Grant programs of the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Mississippi-Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas) have partnered to create an oil spill science outreach program.

Grad Student Johnson Uses Amino Acids to Demystify Salt Marsh Food Webs

Jessica presents her research at the 2016 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science conference in Tampa, FL. (Photo by Michael Polito)

Salt marshes support commercially and culturally important species and are often subject to natural and human-caused stressors. Gaps in our knowledge of salt marsh food webs made management and restoration decisions difficult after the Deepwater Horizon spill. Jessica Johnson helps fill this gap using novel chemical analysis techniques to describe the diets of salt marsh organisms and trace how energy flows through the marsh ecosystem food web. Her work may help inform decision making if a future spill occurs.

Jessica is a masters’ student with the Louisiana State University (LSU) Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences and a GoMRI Scholar with the Coastal Waters Consortium II (CWC II).

Her Path

Jessica participated in the Williams-Mystic Maritime Studies program in 2010 while completing a biology undergraduate degree at Tufts University. One of the program’s activities placed her at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium to gain experience working with salt marshes and the coastal environment. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred one month after she returned to Connecticut. “The spill had a very strong impact on me because I had just studied coastal issues in the spill area and knew how much it would affect the coastal environment,” said Jessica.

Jessica graduated from Tufts and worked in a Massachusetts genomics laboratory to gain practical research experience before pursuing graduate school. Although her position did not involve marine ecology, she kept herself close to the water through volunteer work for the Charles River Watershed Association and an internship with the New England Aquarium. While she worked, the oil spill was constantly at the back of her mind, and she wondered how that event had changed the coastal community in Louisiana.

Jessica saw an advertisement in 2015 for a graduate research position investigating Deepwater Horizon impacts on coastal salt marsh ecology and knew she had to pursue it. She contacted Dr. Michael Polito at LSU to learn more about the position. He encouraged her to apply for the Oceanography and Coastal Sciences graduate program, and Jessica moved to Louisiana in August 2015 to begin her CWC research.

Her Work

Jessica characterizes flow of energy between producers (such as plants, bacteria, and algae) and consumers (such as crabs and birds) from oiled and unoiled marshes using trophic biomarkers called stable isotopes. Basic analyses can determine stable isotope ratios in an organism’s tissues, which becomes a bulk geochemical signature deriving from all the fats, sugars, and proteins that the organism consumed. However, Jessica uses a compound-specific stable isotope analysis technique, which ecologists have just begun exploring for salt marsh research application, to identify the signatures of individual essential amino acids within an organism’s tissue proteins. She then identifies signatures from the food web base that show up in consumers farther up the food chain and maps how energy flows through the food web.

Jessica explains that the concept behind using stable isotopes for dietary research is “you are what you eat.” Producers can make essential amino acids themselves, but consumers cannot and must ingest them through their diets. This means that the essential amino acids found in consumer tissues ultimately come from the plant or algae source that made them. Because the geochemical signatures of amino acids do not change as they move up the food web, scientists can use this technique to observe how energy flows through a food web and whether a disturbance has altered that food web.

While Jessica can compare the energy flow of food webs in oiled and unoiled salt marshes, the lack of data pre-Deepwater Horizon makes it difficult to describe spill impacts confidently. Instead, her research helps establish a picture of what the marshes currently look like and provides responders with a clearer understanding of the way future spills may spread through and impact marsh ecosystems. “Our finished research will describe the ecology and food web of this system far better than anyone understood prior to the oil spill,” said Jessica. “I think that’s a common theme for GoMRI overall – people filling the knowledge gap they didn’t know existed until the oil spill happened.”

Her Learning

Jessica traces the flow of energy through the marsh ecosystem food web. (Provided by CWC)

Jessica’s research experiences taught her that analyzing fieldwork is sometimes more difficult than conducting laboratory experiments. Although the method behind her stable isotope analyses was straightforward, interpreting her results properly and responsibly was more complicated than she anticipated. “You have to be very careful with how you interpret what you measure in the field and make sure you understand what factors are driving the patterns that you see,” explained Jessica. “You have to be very rigorous in your experimental design and the conclusions you make from your research.”

Jessica’s first semester was with CWC, and it included her first experience conducting fieldwork and participating in a group workshop to build a marsh food web model using only existing literature. She initially expected to work only with her advisor on the project, but these early experiences show her how important collaboration is to scientific research. “This is a very unique organization in that we’re all here for the same basic purpose, but we’re also all coming from different places and going different places,” she said. “I was lucky that, in my very first semester, I got to be part of a team and not just work alone.”

Her Future

Jessica will begin a Ph.D. program studying stable isotope ratios in human diets at the University of Alaska Fairbanks next spring. Her research will investigate how the techniques used in her salt marsh research can apply to more clearly and objectively describe the human diet.

She believes that a willingness to take risks is the most important trait for students considering a scientific career. “Approaching a potential advisor can be very scary, especially when you’re young, but scientists want to train people who are enthusiastic and dedicated to the science,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to show your interest, that’s how you get your foot in the door.” She also emphasized that students shouldn’t be discouraged if their risks result in failure. “If you contact someone and they’re not interested, contact ten people – it will happen. Not everyone ends up there the same way, as there are many paths to science.”

Praise for Jessica

Polito was impressed initially with Jessica’s drive, maturity, and level of interest in the project. He was a new professor looking for a student who could take charge and hit the ground running. Jessica exceeded his expectations and took on an ambitious thesis project despite having little experience with isotopes. Two years later, Polito describes her as an expert in stable isotope analysis and says that she often teaches him new things about the technique.

“She really dug into the literature, learned the nitty-gritty details of the methodology, and came out the other end with a strong and exciting thesis that pushes the techniques to their limits,” he said. “This is a really powerful and novel technique, and she’s using it in the salt marsh where it’s really never been done at this level before.” Polito credited the project’s advancement on Jessica and her hard work and talent, “She’s going to have a bright future in sciences, and I’ll be sad to see her go when she graduates.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Jessica Johnson and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals. Visit the CWC website to learn more about their work.

************

RFP-V Shay: 3D Gulf Circulation and Biogeochemical Processes – Profiling Float & Ocean Model

Researcher Lynn K. Nick

The Three-Dimensional Gulf Circulation and Biogeochemical Processes Unveiled by State-of-the-Art Profiling Float Technology and Data Assimilative Ocean Models project is lead by Lynn K. (Nick) Shay, University of Miami.

The overarching goal of this proposed research is to build a rapid response capability that can be deployed in the event of an oil spill. The capability will consist of an integrated observation-prediction system to map the distribution and extent of hydrocarbons in the water column in real time and to quantify hydrocarbon removal and fate including short-term predictions of dispersion induced by the current field and transport of oil to the sea floor through scavenging by marine particles. Specific research objectives are (1) Observe fundamental physical and biogeochemical properties and processes using advanced state of- the-art measurement sensors on new profiling floats; (2) Integrate physical and biogeochemical processes in a coupled model that assimilates real-time data streams in the presence of strong currents; (3) Develop a flexible and carefully evaluated “end-to-end” predictive capability that can be deployed rapidly in case of subsurface oil spills to improve mitigation approaches by emergency responders and policy makers; and, (4) Quantify data and model uncertainties via a robust suite of realistic scenario simulations so that the final forecasted probability has well-understood sources of uncertainty. The prediction system will be evaluated in retrospective assimilation experiments using data from the Deepwater Horizon spill and in forecast experiments that assimilate satellite and float data in real time. Both will demonstrate the system’s capability, and improve our understanding of physical mechanisms and their impacts on the biogeochemistry in the water column.

To address the overarching goal, this group brings together technological development in ocean sensing, and their strategic deployments, modeling and data assimilation techniques, and analyses of data and simulations. The research team members have strong track records in their respective fields as shown on the CVs. The research group includes Dalhousie University, North Carolina State University, Teledyne-Webb Research and the University of Miami. In addition, the team intends to collaborate with the University of Miami’s CARTHE Program, which focuses mainly on measurements of surface processes.

By addressing the complexities of interacting physical and biogeochemical processes through integrated observation and prediction, this research has high potential for scientific as well as societal impacts ranging from possible application of the rapid response capability in the event of a spill and advancement of autonomous observation technology to improved predictions and process understanding. We will combine our collective expertise to develop and implement a rapid response product that is grounded in physical and biogeochemical measurements and their utilization in a coupled modeling framework in the eastern GoM. As part of this effort, we will contribute to training the next generation of scientists and engineers in building and deploying new technology that addresses Research Theme 4. The team members will work closely together to ensure that goals and objectives are met in a timely fashion. Data sets generated by this research will be provided to the GRIIDC group where data will be available to the GoMRI community. This transformative science, made possible through recent advances in autonomous platform and sensor technology, is needed given the complexities that were observed during DwH with subsurface plumes at depth and the southeastern GoM is may be exposed to new risks with possible drilling sites off the Cuba coast in the Straits of Florida. From this broader perspective, our highly experienced team is poised and ready to transcend the boundaries of traditional disciplines in addressing and mitigating present and future risks to our sensitive ecosystems.

Click for access to GoMRI’s YouTube videos of RFP-V Projects…

************

This project was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) in the RFP-V funding program.

RFP-V Miller: Toxicological Properties of Aromatic Hydrocarbons from Deepwater Horizon Spill

Researcher Jeffrey Wickliffe

The Toxicological Properties of Specific Aromatic Hydrocarbons Isolated from Fresh and Aged Crude Oil from the Deepwater Horizon Spill project is lead by Charles Miller, Tulane University.

The scientific goal of this research is to elucidate the highly toxic compounds within fresh and weathered crude oil from the MC252 oil spill. The hypothesis of this research proposal is that a relatively small group of the chemicals in oil accounts for most of the toxicity. Learning the identity of these highly toxic compounds will lead to better predictions of the toxic

properties of fresh crude oil and will provide a way to follow these substances as oil weathers in the environment. Oil residues from various sites differ in their composition and toxic activity. Furthermore, oil constituents change dramatically with time and weathering. The ability to identify and quantitate the key toxic compounds in oil will permit predictions of adverse human health effects and ecotoxicity in the future.

In human and environmental risk assessment studies, the first steps are hazard identification and dose-response analysis. Oil spills are well recognized for causing toxic effects in people and environmental organisms. However, oil is chemically complex and the specific compounds that contribute to its toxicity are surprisingly poorly defined. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) represent a large family of toxic chemicals in oil. PAHs have received considerable attention from scientists. However, most of this previous research has focused on the PAHs produced by combustion (pyrogenic products), and these are not well represented in oil. The petrogenic PAHs in oil are distinct in that they are generally alkylated and most have never been evaluated for toxicity. A review article from this research team (Envir. Health Perspect. 122, 6-9, 2014) highlighted the need for toxicological characterization of the PAHs and other toxic chemicals (e.g. benzothiophenes, naphthaenoaromatics, etc.,) in oil. The marriage of analytical chemical methodologies with cellular bioassays to identify the highly toxic compounds within fresh and weathered oil samples will help to fill this knowledge gap.

Click for access to GoMRI’s YouTube videos of RFP-V Projects…

************

This project was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) in the RFP-V funding program.

RFP-V Conrad: Role of Microbial Motility for Degradation of Dispersed Oil

Researcher Jacinta C. Conrad

The Role of Microbial Motility for Degradation of Dispersed Oil project is lead by P.I. Jacinta C. Conrad, University of Houston.

Microbial biodegradation processes are thought to have played a substantial role in the surprisingly swift disappearance of oil and gas released into the Gulf of Mexico after the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon MC252 blowout. Although previous GoMRI-supported work investigated the composition of the coastal, open-open, and deepwater microbial communities that degraded this oil, much remains poorly understood regarding the impact of physical factors in heterogeneous ocean and coastal environments on the rate of microbial biodegradation. Hence there is a pressing yet unmet need to understand how (a) nearby liquid oil/liquid water or gaseous oil/liquid water interfaces, (b) fluid flow, and (c) dispersants affect microbial motility towards dispersed oil. Moreover, this need must be addressed for bacteria living in each type of ecosystem impacted by catastrophic oil spills. The objective of this project is to elucidate the effects of oil-water interfaces on motility of marine bacteria in the initial stage in biodegradation, as microbes move towards and attach to dispersed oil.
Click for access to GoMRI’s YouTube videos of RFP-V Projects…

************

This project was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) in the RFP-V funding program.

RFP-V Burd: Oil-Marine Snow-Mineral Aggregate Interactions and Sedimentation

Researcher Adrian Burd

The Oil-Marine Snow-Mineral Aggregate Interactions and Sedimentation during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill project is lead by P.I. Adrian Burd, University of Georgia.

The goal of this project will be to use coagulation theory to develop a predictive, mechanistic model for how oil coagulates with particulate material in the marine environment. There is strong observational evidence that oil interacts with particles in the marine environment forming heterogeneous aggregates comprised of oil droplets, mineral particles such as clay and silica, and biological particles such as phytoplankton cells, zooplankton fecal pellets, and marine snow (large heterogeneous aggregates). Such oil-aggregates have been observed in surface waters and in sediment traps, indicating that oil contained in these aggregates can be transported vertically from the surface to the deep ocean, ultimately providing a flux of oil to the seafloor.

Click for access to GoMRI’s YouTube videos of RFP-V Projects…

************

This project was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) in the RFP-V funding program.

Oceanography Highlights Findings from Deepwater Horizon Research

Cover of the September 2016 Oceanography Magazine, Volume 29, Number 3

7^th year of the largest coordinated research endeavor around an ocean event.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and subsequent response efforts raised concerns about impacts on the Gulf of Mexico’s ocean and coastal environments. The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI), in response to the spill, initiated an unprecedented 10-year scientific research program funded by BP. Seven years into the program, we know more than ever before about the Gulf’s complex environment, dynamic processes, and response to stressors.

Oceanography magazine dedicated a special issue to this research, GoMRI: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science, and below are highlights from 13 papers it featured.*

WHERE OIL WENT

Surface oil covered a cumulative area of 149,000 km² in the northeastern Gulf. Wind and currents transported surface slicks towards land, affecting approximately 1,800-2,100 km of shoreline, a third of which were moderately to heavily oiled including 1,075 km in Louisiana. Macondo oil was visually evident at the edge of Louisiana marshes and up to 10 m inland.

Subsea oil and gas rose through the water column and formed an underwater oil plume that covered an area of approximately 930 km² and made direct contact with continental slope sediments. A significant proportion of surface oil returned to the deep seafloor primarily through an extensive marine oil snow sedimentation event known as a “dirty blizzard,” forming a 0.5-1.2 cm thick floc layer.

Cleanup efforts removed oil from 73% of beaches affected by the spill, but residual oil remained as surface residue balls (SRBs), submerged oil mats, and in marsh plants and sediment, and is subject to continued weathering, biodegradation, and possible resuspension.

HOW OIL CHANGED

Crude oils contain thousands of compounds that, upon entering a marine environment, undergo significant compositional changes from weathering processes such as evaporation, dissolution, emulsification, dispersion, sedimentation/flocculation, microbial degradation, and photooxidation.

Most crude oil compounds are readily biodegradable and generally follow a clear degradation pattern: n-alkanes first followed by branched alkanes, lower molecular weight aromatics, higher molecular weight aromatics, and cyclic alkanes. Anaerobic biodegradation is a slower process than aerobic degradation, and crude oil compounds can remain relatively unaltered in reduced sediments and environments for long time periods and may appear as relatively fresh oil compared to surface oil exposed to aerobic conditions.

MICROBIAL RESPONSE AFFECTING OIL FATE

Macondo oil had a relatively low content of persistent resins and asphaltenes, and warm temperatures supported geochemical and biological degradation. The prevalence of oil-degrading bacteria generated a prompt response from the microbial community and subsequent biodegradation. Microbial communities in the plume were different from those in non-plume waters and exhibited a significant enrichment of hydrocarbon-degrading metabolic genes. Aerobic oxidation of short chain alkanes, propane, and butane caused up to 70% of oxygen depletion observed in the oil plume.

Residual oil trapped in Pensacola Beach sands showed a progression of microbial populations linked to hydrocarbon degradation. Early-responder microbes were followed by populations capable of aromatic hydrocarbon decomposition. Microbial abundance in oiled sands was 10-10,000 times that in clean sands in the first four months after oil came ashore. A typical beach-environment microbial community returned after one year but differed significantly from pre-spill communities.

DEEP OCEAN IMPACTS

Carbon from the spill was likely incorporated into the mesopelagic (200-1,000 m depth) food web through consumption of prey rich in depleted carbon. The nature of microbial communities in the deep sea likely changed. An 80-93% decline in benthic foraminifera was related to reducing conditions and increased polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) concentrations.

Deepsea megafauna had lower diversity and abundance near the spill site relative to regions farther away, though blue marlin, Atlantic sailfish, blackfin tuna, and dolphinfish showed no significant reduction in larval abundance. Bottom-dwelling golden tilefish had the highest concentrations of naphthalene metabolite levels in bile measured in fishes globally. Tunas and jacks collected near the spill site exhibited developmental crude oil cardiotoxicity, suggesting a possible loss of early predator recruits that spawn in open waters. Sperm whale acoustic activity decreased near the spill site by a factor of two and increased farther away, suggesting they relocated.

Hard-bottom communities, including natural and artificial reefs, suffered injuries that were severe and long-lasting. Macrofauna and meiofauna diversity had not recovered after four years, and community structure differences still persist. Deep-sea colonial corals, in particular octocorals near the spill site, showed visible evidence of impact, and flocculent material covering the coral contained chemical fingerprints associated with Macondo oil and DOSS (dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate). Researchers returned to these coral eight times and observed continued impacts such as tissue death with some coral skeletons secondarily colonized by hydrozoans.

Field measurements showed that planktonic community abundance and species composition returned to pre-spill conditions within a year. Laboratory experiments indicated that zooplankton exposed to sublethal crude oil levels bioaccumulated five PAHs, which could increase their susceptibility to predation and enhance trophic transfer of toxic PAHs.

MARSH IMPACTS

There were immediate negative impacts in moderately to heavily oiled marshes in southeastern Louisiana. The average concentration of total alkanes and PAHs in June 2013 was 20 and 374 times pre-oiled conditions, respectively. Total alkane concentrations were on a trajectory to be near baseline levels by 2015, but this did not occur likely a result of multiple resuspension events from storms.

Some damaged marsh shorelines showed precipitous shoreline erosion at least 2.5 years after oiling due to damaged root systems. Marshes lost due to oiling and shoreline erosion will not return without human intervention. Forty-two months after the spill, heavily oiled marshes showed near-complete plant mortality, and live aboveground biomass was 50% of reference marshes. Decreased living marsh vegetation and population levels of some fauna were obvious for 2-5 years. Meiofauna density was lower along with S. alterniflora grasses in heavily oiled areas.

Fiddler crab average size declined and there were proportion shifts in two species composition. Periwinkle snails density declined, and a slow recovery in abundance and size distribution was related to habitat recovery. Worms, seed shrimp, and mud dragons had not recovered to background levels 48 months post-spill. Killifish showed little evidence of spill impacts. Horse fly abundance declined sharply. Arthropods were suppressed by 50% in 2010 but had largely recovered in 2011. Seaside Sparrow nests on unoiled sites were more likely to fledge than those on oiled sites. Loons varied in frequency with PAHs by year and exhibited reduced body mass as PAH concentrations increased.

These effects are expected to continue – possibly for decades – to some degree, or the marsh ecosystem will reach a new baseline condition in heavily damaged areas.

FISH & SEAFOOD IMPACTS

Commercial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries were closed in fall 2010 in areas where oil was observed and predicted to travel and reopened by April 2011. Impacts on fisheries productivity were relatively short-lived, with landings and their values returning to pre-spill levels or greater for most fishery species. However, long-term effects are yet to be determined. Laboratory studies indicate that early life stages of fish are generally more sensitive to oil and dispersant’s sublethal effects (with some resulting in reduced swimming performance and cardiac function) than adults.

Public health risks from exposure to crude oil residue through seafood or coastal beaches returned to pre-spill levels after the spill dissipated. Seafood from reopened areas was found to be safe for consumption, with PAH levels comparable to those found in common local processed foods. PAH concentrations detected in many seafood samples during and following the spill were at least 2 orders of magnitude below levels of public health concern. DOSS was detected in less than 1% of samples and at levels below public health concern.

Tests on SRBs showed that Vibrio vulnificus were 10 times higher than the surrounding sand and up to 100 times higher than seawater, suggesting that SRBs can act as reservoirs for bacteria including human pathogens. Coquina clams initially showed higher PAH levels relative to the surrounding sand, but levels decreased continuously and were undetectable in sand (one year) and Coquina tissues (two years).

DISPERSANT EFFECTS & FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES

Dispersant increased the oil fraction that spread within the water column and laterally displaced oil that reached the sea surface. Dispersants reduced droplet sizes and rise velocities, resulting in a more than tenfold increase in the downstream length of the surface oil footprint.

Chemical dispersants may be more toxic to some marine organisms than previously thought, and small oil droplets created by dispersant use and directly consumed by marine organisms are often more toxic than crude oil alone. Dispersant effects on microorganisms might be taxa-specific, and some studies suggest that dispersants stimulated biodegradation while others conclude the opposite. Degradation rates of hexadecane and naphthalene were more rapid in the absence of dispersants, as was the overall removal of the water-accommodated oil fraction.

Dispersant applied at the broken riser pipe helped form a deep water oil plume. DOSS was likely transferred to the plume and was later detected in surface sediments, on corals, and within oil-sand patties.

A future option is development of plant-based materials for efficient chemical herding of compact oil slicks into layers that are sufficiently thick to enable oil burning or skimming. Opportunities exist for new dispersants that work in synergy with current dispersants and mitigate some of their disadvantages. Examples include a system containing soybean lecithin and the surfactant Tween 80, substitution of lecithin for DOSS, and using carbon-based particles and silicas to stabilize emulsified droplets. Laboratory research needs to be conducted at concentrations and under conditions relevant to marine environments.

MODELING CAPABILITIES

Model improvements provide a better understanding of droplet formation in the turbulent plume above the wellhead. No model during the spill could predict droplet size distribution, which dictates rise times, dissolution, and biodegradation. Oil spill models now include the ability to simulate the rise of a buoyant oil plume from the seabed to the surface. Consideration of oil’s 3D movement permits the prediction of oil spreading through subsurface plumes. Our understanding of the near-surface oceanic layer and atmospheric boundary layer, including the influences of waves and wind, has also improved.

Oil spill modeling routines will likely be included in Earth system models, linking physical models with marine sediment and biogeochemical components. Advances in coupled nearfield-farfield dynamic modeling together with real-time, seven-day circulation forecasts allow for near-real-time tracking and forecasting of oil dynamics. This is the most promising approach for rapid evaluation of blowout predictions to support first response decisions.

* Overton, E.B., T.L. Wade, J.R. Radović, B.M. Meyer, M.S. Miles, and S.R. Larter. 2016. Chemical composition of Macondo and other crude oils and compositional alterations during oil spills. Oceanography 29(3):50–63

Socolofsky, S.A., E.E. Adams, C.B. Paris, and D. Yang. 2016. How do oil, gas, and water interact near a subsea blowout? Oceanography 29(3):64–75

Passow, U., and R.D. Hetland. 2016. What happened to all of the oil? Oceanography 29(3):88–95

Özgökmen, T.M., E.P. Chassignet, C.N. Dawson, D. Dukhovskoy, G. Jacobs, J. Ledwell, O. Garcia-Pineda, I.R. MacDonald, S.L. Morey, M.J. Olascoaga, A.C. Poje, M. Reed, and J. Skancke. 2016. Over what area did the oil and gas spread during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill? Oceanography 29(3):96–107

John, V., C. Arnosti, J. Field, E. Kujawinski, and A. McCormick. 2016. The role of dispersants in oil spill remediation: Fundamental concepts, rationale for use, fate, and transport issues. Oceanography 29(3):108–117

Passow, U., and K. Ziervogel. 2016. Marine snow sedimented oil released during the Deepwater Horizon spill. Oceanography 29(3):118–125

Tarr, M.A., P. Zito, E.B. Overton, G.M. Olson, P.L. Adhikari, and C.M. Reddy. 2016. Weathering of oil spilled in the marine environment. Oceanography 29(3):126–135

Joye, S.B., S. Kleindienst, J.A. Gilbert, K.M. Handley, P. Weisenhorn, W.A. Overholt, and J.E. Kostka. 2016. Responses of microbial communities to hydrocarbon exposures. Oceanography 29(3):136–149

Rabalais, N.N., and R.E. Turner. 2016. Effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on coastal marshes and associated organisms. Oceanography 29(3):150–159

Murawski, S.A., J.W. Fleeger, W.F. Patterson III, C. Hu, K. Daly, I. Romero, and G.A. Toro-Farmer. 2016. How did the Deepwater Horizon oil spill affect coastal and continental shelf ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico? Oceanography 29(3):160–173

Buskey, E.J., H.K. White, and A.J. Esbaugh. 2016. Impact of oil spills on marine life in the Gulf of Mexico: Effects on plankton, nekton, and deep-sea benthos. Oceanography 29(3):174–181

Fisher, C.R., P.A. Montagna, and T.T. Sutton. 2016. How did the Deepwater Horizon oil spill impact deep-sea ecosystems? Oceanography 29(3):182–195

Dickey, R., and M. Huettel. 2016. Seafood and beach safety in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Oceanography 29(3):196–203

************

Fact Sheet: Sea Grant Releases Brochure on Oil FAQs

Click image to download PDF…

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team recently developed a new informational brochure that explores basic aspects of oil as a natural resource and oil spills. The synthesizes peer-reviewed science for a broad range of general audiences, particularly those who live and work across the Gulf Coast.

The brochure Frequently Asked Questions Oil Edition addresses questions such as What is oil? How is oil released into the environment? Who produces and uses oil? Does oil break down? How do scientists determine the origin of oil found in the environment?

Sea Grant offers oil-spill-related public seminars across the Gulf Coast. Click here to view upcoming science seminars and read about recently-held events. To receive email updates about seminars, publications, and the outreach team, click here.

************

GoMRI and the Sea Grant programs of the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Mississippi-Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas) have partnered to create an oil spill science outreach program.

RFP-V Shay: Building a Rapid Response System for Predicting Water Column Processes and Oil Fate

Senior research associate Jodi Brewster (left) and Ph.D. candidate Johna Rudzin (right) deploying a CTD with Nanson bottles off the University of Miami R/V F. G. Walton Smith, a ship in the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System fleet. (Photo by Jodi Brewster).

As the Deepwater Horizon oil spill unfolded, there were concerns that the Loop Current might transport oil out of the Gulf to the Florida Keys and up the eastern seaboard. This possibility highlighted the need for quick predictions of oceanic flows and subsurface hydrocarbon distribution during and after a spill. Because physical and biochemical processes can alter subsurface hydrocarbons’ chemical composition and behavior, a successful modeling system must account for these processes when predicting oil fate.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) recently awarded Dr. Lynn “Nick” Shay a grant to develop an integrated physical and biogeochemical observation and prediction system to map the near-real-time distribution of subsurface hydrocarbons and quantify hydrocarbon fate as oil interacts with currents and sinking marine particles. Their goal is to build an observational system that researchers can easily deploy from ships and/or aircraft to start immediate sampling and begin running model scenarios for future oil spills.

The proposed system is a cluster of ten electromagnetic Autonomous Profiling Explorer (APEX) floats with physical, chemical and bio-optical sensors that provide information to a data-assimilative physical-biogeochemical model for hindcast, nowcast, and forecast simulations of oil transport and fate. The team will equip the floats with a novel combination of CTD and electromagnetic current sensors and oxygen, chlorophyll, and colored dissolved organic matter fluorescence and backscatter sensors. The system will focus on the accurate representation of mid-water column processes, including the interaction of hydrocarbon droplets with marine particles.

Prior to deployment, Johna Rudzin (right) and assistant research scientist Benjamin Jaimes (left) test the profiling parameters of an air-deployable EM/Apex float in a Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science laboratory. (Photo by Jodi Brewster).

“These floats have been used in the field for shipboard and aircraft deployments during hurricanes and can readily withstand major ocean and atmospheric stressors,” said Shay. “These profilers were designed to profile to depths of 2,000 m at intervals of 4 – 7 days, depending on the ocean and atmosphere conditions. That means if a hurricane is moving over the Gulf, for example, we can program the floats to sample faster and examine the effects of strong wind-driven currents and upwelling on these biochemical processes.”

The researchers will perform data-assimilative model simulations to hindcast circulation during Deepwater Horizon and determine optimal deployment strategies for field testing the floats. They will then deploy the floats in the northern Gulf from Summer 2017 to Spring 2018 to assess its skill during energetic physical processes, such as the Loop Current and atmospheric events, including hurricane season (summer) and atmospheric frontal passages (winter).

The team will assess the system’s performance using profiler metrics such as temperature, current, and salinity taken pre-, during-, and after weather events. They will also assess the system’s performance using data gathered during and after Deepwater Horizon by other GoMRI projects and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They will then evaluate and improve the model’s representation of mid-water column particle distributions and fluxes, accounting explicitly for marine particles interacting with oil droplets. Finally, they will validate the system’s capability for real-time, end-to-end nowcasting and forecasting by assimilating physical and biochemical satellite and float observations in near-real-time and assessing the system’s predictive skill.

Shay explained that the products created by this research will make both academic and societal contributions, “Scientifically, we hope to show how the physical stressors affect these biogeochemical processes. Societally, we hope to provide the community with an easily deployable end-to-end system product that returns real-time data to help emergency responders and policy makers to mitigate deep-sea oil spills like Deepwater Horizon.”

The project’s researchers are Lynn “Nick” Shay at the University of Miami, Katja Fennel at Dalhousie University, Peter Furze at Teledyne Webb Research, and Ruoying He at North Carolina State University. Their project is Three-Dimensional Gulf Circulation and Biogeochemical Processes Unveiled by State-of-the-Art Profiling Float Technology and Data Assimilative Ocean Models.

************

Video: Infrared Video Documents Oil-Dispersant Interactions

Credit: Alexander Soloviev

Nova Southeastern University researcher Alexander Soloviev and his team generated a short clip in infrared imagery demonstrating how crude and weathered oil slicks respond to dispersant application.

Read the post here!

Watch the video!

RFP-V Van Bael: Chemical Evolution & Degradation of Petroleum in Saline Marsh Plants & Soils

Dr. Sunshine Van Bael

The importance of bacteria for biodegradation of petroleum is well described for contaminated seawater and coastal soils, but very little is known about the role of symbiotic plant bacteria in degrading petroleum. Endophytes are bacteria and fungi that live as symbionts within plant roots, stems and leaves. These symbionts are closely associated with the plant and some endophyte species serve the dual purpose of promoting plant growth and degrading petroleum inside of plant tissues. In an extreme environment such as a salt marsh, where oxygen is limited in soils, plants may be especially dependent on endophytic bacteria for resilience to stress and to respond to petroleum contamination.

The overall goal of the proposed research is to develop a mechanistic understanding of plant bacterial symbioses in relation to petroleum/dispersant pollution in saline marshes. The proposed work will characterize the transport, fate and catabolic activities of bacterial communities in petroleum-polluted soils and within plant tissues. The project focuses on Spartina alterniflora (smooth cordgrass), the foundational grass species within salt marshes along Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The specific goals are (1) to use next-generation genomic technology for characterizing the taxonomy and function of microbial communities inside of S. alterniflora tissues and in the rhizosphere, while relating these communities to the chemical evolution of crude oil constituents in plant tissues and in soil; and (2) to use new visualization and computational modeling approaches for investigating the biomechanical and chemical influences on bacteria movement at the interface of roots and soil to mechanistically relate bacterial chemotaxis to the presence of petroleum, dispersant, oxygen and root exudates. The proposed research goals directly address GoMRI research theme two, as each ultimately relates plant-symbiont interactions to the chemical evolution and biodegradation of petroleum and dispersants in coastal ecosystems. Pursuing these goals will advance understanding of key processes that occurred in the DWH spill and may occur in future spills.

The outcomes of the proposed research will include (1) a deeper knowledge of the functional genomics of petroleum degradation and uptake of petroleum into plants, (2) the first descriptions and computational models for the biomechanical and chemical aspects of bacterial movement at the root: rhizosphere interface in response to petroleum and dispersant, and (3) the first determination of how plant-endophyte symbioses influence the fate of petroleum in marsh ecosystems. Developing a mechanistic understanding of plant-symbiont-petroleum interactions could provide a foundation for the development of remediation tools using naturally occurring plant-bacteria combinations. Such strategies are being developed in other ecosystems but have not yet been extended to include coastal plants in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), where there is a persistently high threat of petroleum contamination.

This project was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) in the RFP-V funding program.

Fact Sheet: ACER Blog Explains Mass Spectrometry

The mass spectrometer used to measure nitrogen compound in sediment samples to calculate denitrification rates. Photo credit: B. Mortazavi

The post explains that a mass spectrometer, or mass spec for short, has become an important tool in many aspects of science including genetics, biochemistry, pharmaceuticals, environmental science, geology and ecology. The mass spec is an instrument that tells us the masses of specific chemical elements in a sample. Briefly, a mass spec works by converting all of the chemical elements in a liquid, solid or gas sample to ions (‘ionizing’). The instrument then sorts or separates the ion based on their mass (specifically their mass to charge ratio) by applying a magnetic or electric field. A detector then records the specific ions present at specific times in the stream of ions.

An ion is a charged (positive or negative) molecule. A mass spec creates these charged particles by firing electrons at the sample until it all breaks apart. The ions are then shot into an electric or magnetic field. This field causes the ions of different charge to move to the detector at different rates from the chamber where the field is applied. Just as a lighter box is easier to shove than a heavier one, lighter ions are deflected more than heavier ones and reach the detector first.

For more educational entries from the ACER blog, head to the ACER Happenings page.

RFP-V Rodgers: Unraveling the Biotic and Abiotic Chemical Evolution of Macondo Oil

The The State-of-the-Art Unraveling of the Biotic and Abiotic Chemical Evolution of Macondo Oil: 2010-2018 project is lead by Ryan P. Rodgers, Florida State University.

Researcher Ryan P. Rodgers

Once released into the environment, petroleum undergoes physical processes that modify its native composition (water washing and evaporative losses) and chemical processes (largely oxidative, i.e. photo-oxidation and biodegradation) that we and others have shown results in an increase in oxygen-containing chemical functionalities of the predominately hydrocarbon matrix to ketone, hydroxyl, and carboxylic acid functionalities. Efforts to date have documented these weathering trends for Macondo well oil (MWO) from approx. 10 months post-spill to the present. It has been demonstrated that a pool of persistent oxidized petroleum-derived material increased with increasing weathering of MWO in the environment. However, not much is yet known about the molecular structure of the oxygenated transformation products, its environmental fate, or potential effects, as these oxidized products lie largely outside the conventional gas chromatography analytical window. However, there now exists technology to quantitatively track how the various oil-weathering processes (evaporative, water washing, photo-oxidation and biodegradation) change the petroleum composition at a molecular level. For example, it has been demonstrated that ultra-high resolution mass spectrometric analysis allows identification of 1000’s of oxidative weathering products.

This project aims to apply these techniques in order to understand how these weathering processes occur, to quantify rate(s) of oxygenated oil weathering product formation and degradation, and characterize toxicological effects on the ecosystem. More specifically, this project aims to answer the questions: (1) How does the molecular composition of MWO oil change over time? (2) Which compositional changes are caused by photo-oxidation? Biodegradation? How does the structural / chemical composition of the oil influence oxidation? (3) How does this compositional change influence toxicity of weathered MWO? (4) What is the overall fate of MWO on a time scale of 8 years?

This project will track the continued weathering of MWO and focus on early sampling dates (0-10 months) immediately after the spill, where a rapid formation of oxygenated products is hypothesized, as well as highly weathered samples (to be collected up to eight years after the spill). The proposed analytical methodologies will capture bulk and molecular level, biotic / abiotic temporal compositional changes in the MWO as it weathers in the environment. The efforts will generate a compositional database of the quantitative and qualitative weathering of MWO. Second, analysis of field samples will be combined with controlled laboratory experiments of MWO photo-oxidation and biodegradation. Third, MWO and other oils, their structurally defined fractions, and all weathering products for each, will be screened for toxicity (narcosis), and observed effects will be linked (correlated) to the molecular compositional change in MWO during weathering. Finally, since the structural dependence of weathering will captured herein, along with each fractions toxicity (and water soluble fractions), a simple model will be constructed based on the quantitative yields of each structural fraction, its associated weathering products, and rate of formation. Thus, simple quantitative fractionation of any future contaminant could potentially be used to predict the rate, mass, and type of weathering products formed. The model will be validated against field data collected from the Deepwater Horizon disaster and other recent oil spills.

Click for access to GoMRI’s YouTube videos of RFP-V Projects…

************

This project was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) in the RFP-V funding program.

RFP-V Miller: Identifying Toxic Components in Fresh and Weathered Crude Oil

Ph.D. student Rebecca Lichtler prepares hydrocarbon solutions for toxicity studies in cultured cells. (Photo by Charles Miller)

Hydrocarbons associated with oil spills can have harmful effects on humans and organisms, yet little is known about the specific compounds that contribute to toxicity. The ability to identify and quantify oil’s key toxic compounds will help improve predictions of future spills’ effects on human health and marine ecosystems.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative recently awarded Dr. Charles Miller a grant to identify toxic compounds within fresh and weathered Deepwater Horizon crude oil. Miller’s team hypothesizes that a relatively small group of chemicals accounts for most of oil’s toxicity and hopes to identify these oil compounds that are crucial to understanding toxicity.

Oils from different sites and sources vary in composition and toxicity, and oil components change radically with time and weathering. There are sixteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) compounds that the Environmental Protection Agency has identified as reference compounds for use in environmental studies. Researchers will explore oil compounds not included in the sixteen reference PAHs to expand our knowledge about the toxicity of these less-studied oil compounds.

Ph.D. student Ahmad Alqassim prepares a chemical solution for cellar analysis. (Photo by Charles Miller)

“There are oil compounds that are more prevalent and complex than the sixteen reference compounds, but they have been studied either very little or not at all,” said Miller. “There are thousands of chemicals in oil that we have no toxicity data for at all – we don’t know what they do.”

Miller’s team will conduct genetic assays to identify oil compounds that activate the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), a protein in all human cells that can signal the expression of genes related to serious adverse health effects, including cancer. They will separate crude oil samples into fractions that will each be combined with human stem cells to identify those that activate the AhR. The researchers will then refractionate the identified fractions into smaller groups of chemicals and run them through the assay again. They will repeat this process to isolate individual compounds responsible for oil toxicity.

Miller hopes this research will provide important guidance into which oil compounds should be assessed in order to gauge a spill’s toxicity. “Some spills are more toxic than others, and we don’t always know why that is,” he said. “If we knew which chemicals to watch for, it could help estimate how toxic a spill may be.” Tracking these toxic compounds during future spills will help researchers and responders better understand the severity and persistence of the potential risks associated with oil contamination.

This project’s researchers are Charles Miller, Jeffery Wickliffe, and Mark Wilson of the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and Edward Overton of the Louisiana State University Department of Environmental Sciences. Their project is Toxicological Properties of Specific Aromatic Hydrocarbons Isolated from Fresh and Aged Crude Oil from the Deepwater Horizon Spill.

************
The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Video: DROPPS Researcher Delivers Televised Talk on Oil Degradation

3783 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 ecological impacts of this spill have become one of the subjects of extensive research.

Dr. Hernando Bacosa is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. His lecture at Del Mar College, “Biodegradation and Photooxidation of Spilled Oil in Northern Gulf of Mexico,” presented some recent findings about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill’s ecological impacts and was televised on Channel 19 Spectrum Cable and Grande Cable in Corpus Christi.

Visit the DROPPS website.

OneGulf Voyage Gathers Unprecedented Marine Samples for Two Oil Spills

The cruise map of the One Gulf Expedition shows the 69 long-line stations (red circles) completed in 40 days. Researchers caught over 2,400 fish to study the impacts of Gulf oil spills. (Credit: C-IMAGE Consortium)

An international science team recently completed a 4,000-mile expedition to learn more about the long-term fate of two of the world’s largest subsea oil spills, the 1979 Ixtoc-I and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon. The 40-day Gulf of Mexico voyage continued their 2015 field campaign, contributing to a multi-year Gulf-wide analysis of these oil spills and the marine environment’s response and recovery.

Aboard the R/V Weatherbird-II, researchers with the Center for the Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems II (C-IMAGE II) collected thousands of bottom-dwelling fish, sediment, water, and plankton samples from the Yucatan Peninsula and Bay of Campeche to the Texas shelf. A land-based team combed Mexico’s Campeche, Tabasco, and Veracruz shorelines for evidence of residual oil.

Erika Fredrik (USF) collects deep-sea sediment samples used for microbial studies with GoMRI partners. (Credit: C-IMAGE Consortium)

“It’s unprecedented to undertake this type of research,” said University of South Florida (USF) Professor and C-IMAGE Director Steven Murawski. “Planning logistics, acquiring permits, and organizing resources needed for 40 days at sea in international waters is very difficult; and we appreciate the many agencies and groups that helped make this expedition possible.”

The samples collected during the 2015-2016 expeditions contributed to the first set of Gulf-wide baseline data, enabling scientists to characterize the Gulf’s present condition. Analyses of biota and sediment will help identify if there are relatively pristine (oil-free) areas of the Gulf and inform impact assessments of future spills.

Ph.D. student Usman Muhammed (ETH-Zürich) transfers a core of Gulf sediments into storage for future chemical analysis. (Credit: Benjamin Prueitt, C-IMAGE)

A significant challenge in assessing Deepwater Horizon impacts is not knowing contamination levels before the spill. One way that the OneGulf scientists are addressing the lack of pre-2010 spill data is to study areas impacted by Ixtoc-I and forecast what Deepwater Horizon-impacted sites may experience in 30 years. “We hope to be able to fully characterize oil residue still remaining along the Mexican coasts,” said USF Marine Geochemist and team lead Patrick Schwing. “The samples we collected will help us identify the spatial extent, thickness, and any lasting impacts and study the products of this oil’s natural weathering.”

Dan Razionale, an undergraduate student at Eckerd College, collects pore water from a sediment core to test for levels of nutrients and trace metals. (Credit: Benjamin Prueitt, C-IMAGE)

The OneGulf team, however, did not start from zero to investigate the Ixtoc-I spill. Endowed Chair of Biodiversity and Conservation Science and Professor Emeritus John Wes Tunnell at the Harte Research Institute was studying corals off the Texas coast when the Ixtoc-I spill began. He documented where oil washed ashore and, even though funds ran out, continued taking students back to oil-impacted areas for years afterward. He guided the C-IMAGE researchers to the same locations that he had been monitoring. Tunnell and researchers with the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) Adolfo Gracia and Elva Escobar-Briones played vital roles in designing studies to examine Ixtoc-I impacts.

The Ixtoc-I and Deepwater Horizon spills share many similarities and present a unique opportunity for comparative analysis. Here are some topics that the team hopes to learn more about:

Researchers collect fish bile samples for toxicity analysis. Bile indicates how fish are metabolizing remaining oil levels. (Credit: C-IMAGE Consortium)

A Similar Marine Snow Event?

Recent studies (Passow, 2014; Brooks, et al., 2015; Hastings, et al., 2015) reported evidence that marine snow associated with Deepwater Horizon created a mechanism for oiled particles to reach the seafloor, which may serve as long-term storage for contaminants that could potentially reenter the water column (Chanton, et al., 2015). One question scientists have is: how long will sedimented oily particles remain in the environment, potentially affecting bottom-dwelling fish and sediment-dwelling organisms?

Researchers on the OneGulf voyage think they may have uncovered a clue. They found a layer of oily sediment buried under the seafloor near the Ixtoc-I site. Lab analyses of these sediment core samples will determine a possible source of this oily layer, and if the oil signature is consistent with an Ixtoc-I spill point source, then the answer may be possibly decades.

Researchers on the Tunnell Trek collect a sediment core adjacent to a mangrove forest impacted by the 1979 Ixtoc I spill. (Credit: C-IMAGE Consortium)

Food Web Impacts?
Ongoing investigations are addressing questions about short- and long-term impacts on the marine food web following the Deepwater Horizon spill. Recent studies (Murawski, et al., 2014; Synder, et al., 2015 and Tarnecki, et al., 2015; Wilson, et al., 2015) suggest that hydrocarbons associated with Deepwater Horizon may have entered the coastal food web; that some demersal fishes in oil-contaminated waters exhibited elevated hydrocarbon concentrations and experienced shifts in diet and trophic level; and that there was a short-term increase in observed fish lesions that declined as hydrocarbon concentrations decreased.

OneGulf researchers will compare tissues, blood, and bile from bottom-dwelling fish caught off the Veracruz coast, the most likely place where Ixtoc-I oil settled, to biological samples collected near the Deepwater Horizon site and unpolluted areas. They will use these data to establish if fish experience elevated hydrocarbon levels or lasting effects of exposure in the entire Gulf or just near Deepwater Horizon and Ixtoc-I sites.

Isabel Romero and Patrick Schwing chisel a tar patty in Montepio, Mexico. Submerged tar still gives off surface oil sheens in tide pools along the shore. (Credit: Ethan Goddard)

Long-Term Shoreline Contamination?
Some of the most visible evidence of Deepwater Horizon contamination was weathered oil found in beached tar balls and sand patties (Aeppli, et al., 2012), oil buried in sand (Hayworth, et al., 2015; Yin, et al, 2015; Zuijdgeest and Huettell, 2012), and fouled vegetation (Judy, et al., 2014). How long will hydrocarbons from this weathered oil persist in and possibly harm northern Gulf coastal environments?

Another clue for answers may come from the OneGulf voyage. The land-based team found oily tar balls and slabs on beaches and in barren mangrove areas along Campeche, Tabasco, and Veracruz shorelines that they believe may be potentially from Ixtoc-I. Analyses of these recent collections is ongoing, and the team hopes the results will help provide insights about possible long-term coastal contamination and impacts from Deepwater Horizon.

What’s Next?
In one sense the cruise is over, but in another sense it is just beginning. Murawski explained, “The really hard work of cataloging, analyzing, and interpreting the significance of these results has just started.” Dozens of scientists and technicians from Europe, Mexico, Canada, and the United States will spend years refining our understanding of how the Gulf works and how subsea oil spills impact its large and diverse ecosystem.

A piece of tar and asphalt found on Mexican shores. The tar layered some of the beach sands and still smelled of oil when broken. Future analysis will determine the lasting decadal effects of tar on the shores and in the mangroves. (Credit: Isabel Romero)

Scientists studying other important Gulf of Mexico issues are benefiting from the OneGulf expedition, too. The C-IMAGE team collected surface water samples for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Harmful Algal Bloom group who are studying the diversity and spread of Gulf blooms including Red Tide (K.brevis). Two international Ph.D. students joined the voyage, Usman Muhammed with the Technical Institute of Zürich (ETH-Zürich) who studies carbon cycling and Diana Torres Galindez with the UNAM who studies deep-sea fishes. An official from the Mexican fishery service, INAPESCA, assisted the C-IMAGE efforts and collected offshore shark species samples.

“We have learned a great deal about the Gulf’s health after the Deepwater Horizon spill,” Murawski said. “But we can’t stop here. There’s remarkable scientific potential in the southern Gulf as well.”

More Information:

Listen to a podcast Ixtoc Spill: Reflections featuring scientists Wes Tunnell and John Farrington.
Listen to a podcast In the Mud in Mexico featuring scientist David Hollander
Read updates and see pictures from those who participated in this summer’s expedition at #OneGulf and the C-IMAGE blog and Flickr site.

************
This research was made possible in part by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to the Center for the Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems II (C-IMAGE II).

Fact Sheets: ACER “Tool Talk” Series Tackles Gene Sequencing

DNA This factsheet explains not only what gene sequencing is and how it works but also how scientists use it to identify and compare bacteria in sediment samples.

Remember back in high school biology when you studied genetics and learned about DNA, nucleotides and gene sequencing? Join us for this week’s Tool Talk as we clear away the cobwebs on gene sequencing and learn how Alabama Center for Ecological Resilience (ACER) scientists are using this process to study the microbial community composition.

Click to read more…

Screenscope Releases 50 Short Videos to Accompany Dispatches from the Gulf Documentary

6213 — This eye-catching collage representing several of the 50 video shorts is on the cover of the Dispatches from the Gulf educators’ guide. Photo by Screenscope, Inc.

Screenscope, Inc., is pleased to announce the release of 50 short videos complementing the Dispatches from the Gulf documentary film.

The videos include highlights from the film, interviews with Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI)-funded scientists and graduate students, and more. An associated Educators Guide provides detailed descriptions and keywords for each video. The videos were generated as an extension of the film, to be used in classroom curriculum and in other educational efforts.

The 50 Shorts Videos are available here on the Dispatches from the Gulf
The Educators Guide can be found here.
If you are an educator, or know someone who is, you can request a free copy of the Dispatches from the Gulf DVD to use in your classroom here.
More information about the Dispatches from the Gulf documentary is available here and here.

****************************

Dispatches from the Gulf is made possible in part by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. The GoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP.

RFP-V John: Synergistic Dispersant & Herding Systems Using Tubular Clay & Gel Phase

The Design of Synergistic Dispersant and Herding Systems using Tubular Clay Structures and Gel Phase Materials project is lead by P.I. Vijay John, Tulane University.

Researcher John Vijay

Dispersants are typically solutions containing one or more surfactants dissolved in a solvent. They work by reducing the interfacial tension between oil and water, thereby reducing the work needed to break oil into sufficiently small droplets that are in the colloidal size range and disperse into the water column. The COREXIT class of dispersants (C9500) was used extensively in the Deepwater Horizon incident, and was considered a success in preventing significant amounts of oil from reaching the shoreline. The ecological consequences of deep sea dispersant addition and subsequent oil dispersion are issues of intensive research efforts.

From a technological perspective, there are significant opportunities to improve dispersant efficiency. C9500 and other commercial dispersants are not effective in the dispersion of weathered oil and high viscosity crudes. Some components of C9500, in particular the di-octyl sodium sulfosuccinate (DOSS) component, may persist for extended periods in the marine environment. C9500 also contains a significant amount of paraffin as solvent, and alternative formulations that decrease the solvent content while maintaining efficiency are desirable. Being a liquid solution, significant amounts of dispersant become wasted if encounter with oil is not rapidly realized.

It is therefore proposed to conduct fundamental and applied research to develop dispersant systems that are synergistic with C9500, but that may alleviate many of the disadvantages of C9500 without the need for entirely different chemical components. This is motivated by the realization that many years of research have gone into the development of C9500 which is currently stockpiled along coastlines of offshore oil exploration and production. The proposed research involves fundamental concepts relevant to the stabilization oil droplets by particles (Pickering emulsions) that are relevant to the formation of oilmineral aggregates. While such particles stabilize oil droplets against coalescence, they do not lead to the generation of small droplets which require the surfactants in dispersants to significantly reduce the oil-water interfacial tension. The innovation in the proposed work lies in the use of natural tubular clays known as halloysites which are available in the large quantities necessary for oil spill remediation. When filled with surfactant, the clays not only stabilize the oil drops against coalescence, but also reduce the interfacial tension through a targeted release of surfactant to the oil-water interface. This is Specific Aim 1 of the proposal. Concomitantly, it is proposed to develop a new gel based dispersant that adheres to the oil and is buoyant, thus encountering oil efficiently, and has the potential to disperse weathered oil. The encapsulation of these gels into the tubular lumen of halloysite and the targeted delivery to oil are the topics of Specific Aim 2.

It is also the hypothesis that the presence of a solid phase (halloysite clay tubes) at the oil-water interface will facilitate anchoring of microbial oil degrading communities to the interface and will enhance biodegradation. Specific aim 3 therefore, is to examine the microbial degradation of oil when the interface is stabilized by halloysite. Our innovation lies in the understanding of microbial biodegradation by following the process at the nanoscale using high resolution cryogenic electron microscopy to characterize biofilm formation and the dynamics of oil droplet degradation. It is also the objective that such studies will provide insights into the formation of marine snow.

Click for access to GoMRI’s YouTube videos of RFP-V Projects…

This project was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) in the RFP-V funding program.

Video: The CSI Effect – Using Forensics to Study Oil Spills

Coupling the “crime scene” forensic idea with the idiom of geology creates the following premise: “the present is the key to the past, but the past provides a window into the future.”

Researchers are using chemical forensics to predict how the Deepwater Horizon Event will transpire over the decades to come.

Featuring David Hollander (University of South Florida), Steve Murawski (University of South Florida), and Chris Reddy (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution).

The creators of award-winning environmental series Journey to Planet Earth (hosted by Matt Damon) present Dispatches from the Gulf – an upcoming documentary film and educational outreach initiative highlighting exclusive scientific discoveries in health, ecosystems, innovation and recovery in the post-oil spill Gulf of Mexico.

Share your thoughts at the following “Dispatches from the Gulf” Social Media links:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Dispatches from the Gulf” is a new Journey to Planet Earth (J2PE) episode showing how scientists confront the challenges of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The documentary also investigates the impact of the event on the ecosystems and communities along the Gulf of Mexico.

J2PE dramatizes new ways of looking at the delicate relationship between people and the world they inhabit. The series is designed to help viewers understand and cope with the most important environmental issues of the 21st century.

Through an interdisciplinary approach, these programs reach beyond the physical sciences and draw connections to politics, economics, sociology, and history. A common thread runs throughout — the necessity to achieve a balance between the needs of people and the needs of the environment. Though photographed on different continents and focusing on different sets of problems, audiences come to see why all of these stories are connected, providing a dramatic mosaic of how the Earth works as an interrelated system.

RFP-V Huettel: Biodegradation & Ecosystem Recovery in Coastal Marine Sediments

Markus Huettel gives an overview of the project at the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference January 2016
The A systems approach to improve predictions of biodegradation and ecosystem recovery in coastal marine sediments impacted by oil spill project is lead by P.I. Markus Huettel, Florida State University.

Researcher Markus Huettel

After coastal oil spills, petroleum hydrocarbons accumulate in submerged nearshore sediments and on beaches, poisoning these ecosystems and creating health risks for coastal organisms and humans. Erosion and deposition cycles lead to burial of weathered crude oil in submerged shelf beds, intertidal sediments, and dry beach sands. Prediction of the effects and fate of these buried petroleum hydrocarbons remains hampered by our limited understanding of the controls of the biodegradation and functioning of sedimentary microbial communities that break down petroleum hydrocarbons. Transport of oxygen and nutrients to the buried oil is expected to control the rates of hydrocarbon biodegradation. While the flow of air through dry beach sands can rapidly transport oxygen to buried oil, it cannot carry nutrients that are limiting the degradation of the oil. Transport via pore water flows in submerged sand beds is slower than the gas transport in dry sand, but water can transport dissolved nutrients to buried hydrocarbons. It is therefore hypothesized that microbial oil degradation in dry, temporally wet and water-saturated sediments differ. A quantitative understanding of the mechanisms controlling these differences is a central prerequisite for the modeling of oil decomposition in these coastal ecosystems. The main goals of this project therefore are to link microbial degradation of buried oil and associated transport processes, and to integrate these data in a model that allows predictions of pathways and rates of oil degradation, and thus, forecasting recovery pathways in future oil spills. Specific objectives are to:

1. Determine microbial community structure and succession associated with petroleum hydrocarbons buried in sub-, inter- and supratidal coastal sands using in-situ measurements and controlled laboratory mesocosm incubations that simulate in-situ conditions.
2. Quantitatively link supply rates of oxygen and nutrients to microbial oil degradation rates and community structure in these sands.
3. Develop a model using a systems approach that incorporates microbiological, genomics, biogeochemical and transport data to predict decomposition rates of buried oil in sub, inter- and supratidal beach sands.
4. Organize a two-day workshop for disseminating our models and associated bioinformatics tools for multi-omics data analysis and integration to the GoMRI research community.

This project that contributes to GoMRI RFP V research theme (2) couples cutting-edge microbiological and geochemical approaches in the field with targeted laboratory experiments, genomic analyses and predictive mathematical modeling. In the experiments, biodegradation rates of specific hydrocarbon compounds are linked to the metabolic potential of microbial groups using a combination of metagenomic and metatranscriptomic sequencing and culture-based physiological and genetic manipulations. A distinguishing aspect of this research is that it will integrate taxonomic, genetic and functional data from complex, multivariate experiments into advanced dynamic models that will represent responses of whole microbial communities and allow predictions of their activities under different levels of oxygen and nutrients. The broader impact of this research is related to the potential environmental and health risks associated with petroleum hydrocarbons still persisting in the coastal environment. Covered by anoxic sediment, oil may persist in largely un-weathered form and thus may contain relatively large concentrations of harmful oil components (PAHs) that can be released during storm events. The project will produce tools (e.g., models and microbial indicators of oil degradation) for environmental managers and decision makers that can help planning responses to future oil spills.

Click for access to GoMRI’s YouTube videos of RFP-V Projects…

This project was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) in the RFP-V funding program.

Bringing Marine Snow to the Oil Transport Forecast

A photograph of oil-marine snow aggregates at the water’s surface in the Gulf of Mexico, May 2011. (Photo by Andrew Warren)

Evidence suggests that when oil interacts with particles in the marine environment, it can form larger, rapidly sinking particles called marine snow.

These oily aggregates are often transported from the sea surface to the seafloor. The snow falls more like a heavy blizzard than a light flurry for large discharges such as the Deepwater Horizon spill and could present a pathway for oil to enter the food web as it descends. Recent research indicates that oil transported to the seafloor is an important piece in calculating the oil budget. However, oil transported via marine snow is rarely incorporated into oil transport models, which focus on the distribution of oil by currents.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative recently awarded Dr. Adrian Burd a grant to develop a model with parameters that can predict how oil will interact with other particles present in the marine environment. Burd’s team will then use this model to investigate how these interactions affect oil sedimentation to the deep ocean. Burd explained, “It is important to understand the mechanisms behind oil-particle interactions and processes because, although these aggregates remove oil from surface waters, they also cause oil to be deposited on the ocean floor.”

The schematic (at right) depicts the interactions between oil, mineral particles, and marine snow in the water column. Oil droplets in the water column can create aggregates with mineral particles and marine snow. These large particles rapidly sink through the water column carrying the oil with them, creating a process that transports oil from the surface to the deep ocean. Sinking particles that pass through sub-surface oil layers can accumulate and carry even more oil to the ocean floor. Meanwhile, oil that reaches the surface can form large mucus-oil aggregates which can also subsequently sink to the ocean floor. (Figure by Adrian Burd).

The researchers plan to incorporate oil droplets, mineral particles, microbial mucus flocs, and the relevant processes affecting them (such as weathering and microbial production) into an existing coagulation model. First, they will develop a surface model extending from the ocean surface to 140 meters depth and begin constructing parameters that will predict the microbial-mucus-oil aggregates’ sizes and the rates at which they form and sink through the water column. Then, they will extend the model through the whole water column and incorporate the effects of oil-particle interactions and oil sedimentation rates.

The full model will allow the team to predict how much oil is trapped in these sinking aggregates and how rapidly it settles under a wide range of conditions. Burd emphasized the utility of this model, “This information will be useful not only to understanding the fate of oil in water but also to first-responders, who will need to know how the oil is distributed in the water.”

This project’s researchers are Adrian Burd at the University of Georgia Department of Marine Science, Kendra Daly at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, and Uta Passow at the University of California – Santa Barbara Marine Science Institute with outreach support from Liesl Hotaling at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science. Their project is Oil-Marine Snow-Mineral Aggregate Interactions and Sedimentation during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

************

Video: The Story in Sixty Seconds (Dispatches from the Gulf)

The creators of award-winning environmental series Journey to Planet Earth (hosted by Matt Damon) present Dispatches from the Gulf – an upcoming documentary film and educational outreach initiative highlighting exclusive scientific discoveries in health, ecosystems, innovation and recovery in the post-oil spill Gulf of Mexico.

Published on Jun 22, 2016
Six years after the Deepwater Horizon blowout, an international team of researchers is focused on the Gulf of Mexico. These are some of their stories – intimate portraits of research – innovation – discovery. Stories that speak directly to a nation still recovering from the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Share your thoughts at the following Dispatches from the Gulf Social Media links:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Identifying Effective, Food-Grade Dispersants for the Future

This figure depicts two vials in which a thin layer of crude oil was placed over simulated sea water. Different dispersants were added to each vial, and the vials were lightly shaken and photographed 30 minutes later. The left vial shows an example of bad or ineffective emulsion, where the crude oil remains as a dark brown slick on the water’s surface and the water column contains negligible oil. The right vial shows an example of good and effective emulsion, where the crude oil is dispersed into small droplets in the water column. (Photos by Jasmin Athas)

Oil spill responders currently have the option to treat oil spills with a synthetic dispersant called Corexit, however scientists continue to search for alternatives. In this search, scientists seek to develop an understanding of the specific mechanisms that drive dispersion and identify an effective combination of food-grade components.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) awarded Dr. Srinivasa Raghavan a grant to investigate and identify a viable alternative to Corexit. Dispersants contain surfactant compounds that help break up oil into tiny droplets, particularly when the oil encounters agitations such as wave motion. Preliminary research identified soy lecithin, a nontoxic food-grade surfactant, as a viable replacement for dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (DOSS), a synthetic surfactant that is one of Corexit’s major oil-dispersing compounds.

The team will study the fundamental mechanisms of efficient dispersion to reveal ways that dispersant formulations can be enhanced and optimized for a variety of complex applications, such as dispersing highly viscous or weathered oils. The researchers will apply various combinations of lecithin and other widely available food-grade surfactants to a thin oil layer on a simulated saltwater sea surface and identify which formulations best disperse oil. They will examine how much oil is dispersed and the dispersed oil’s stability to remain in the water column and not recoalesce at the surface.

Once the team identifies the most effective formulations, they will investigate the factors that contribute to effective dispersion. This process will include assessing the mechanisms behind oil dispersion and the way those mechanisms differ from emulsification (the stable suspension of oil droplets in water when mixed vigorously). The researchers hypothesize that a dispersant’s effectiveness is heavily influenced by its molecular nanostructure. “That is the true mystery aspect of this research – why are some formulations better than others?” said Raghavan. “We are finding that in the current literature there is no good answer to this question.”

The team hopes their findings will influence future dispersant design towards more effective and environmentally benign formulations. Raghavan commented, “We’ve set out to find an effective, nontoxic formulation that we can clearly prove is better than the current standard. Our hope is that our data and findings will be eye-opening and generate an incentive for change.”

The project’s researchers are Srinivasa Raghavan at the University of Maryland Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Geoffrey Bothun at the University of Rhode Island Department of Chemical Engineering,Vijay John at the Tulane University Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Alon McCormick at the University of Minnesota Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. Their project is Molecular Engineering of Food-Grade Dispersants as Highly Efficient and Safe Materials for the Treatment of Oil Spills.

************

Digging Up the Mechanisms of Buried Oil Degradation

(Click to enlarge) Partially buried oil at Pensacola Beach, Florida, showing oil deposited in intertidal (partially submerged) and supratidal (exposed) sands. Depending on the location of the oil burial, oil-degrading microbes are exposed to very different environmental settings ranging from permanently submerged to permanently dry. The location of the buried oil also affects the oil’s exposure to oxygen, nutrients, and heat and thus impacts the rates of microbial degradation. (Photo by Markus Huettel)

Spilled oil buried in nearshore sediment can persist for many years and act as a long-term source of episodic hydrocarbon contamination in the environment.

Although we have a basic understanding of how fast crude oil degrades in soils, we still do not fully understand what influences the degradation process or the microbial community responsible for oil decomposition in the seabed.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative awarded Dr. Markus Huettel a grant to investigate buried oil’s microbial degradation in coastal environments and create a model that can help predict oil degradation rates and pathways for future spills. His team will combine cutting-edge microbiological and geochemical techniques in the field with targeted laboratory experiments to uncover how microbial communities degrade buried oil under varying environmental conditions.

Microbial oil degradation is most effective in oxygen-rich conditions. Huettel’s team will incubate sediment cores in mesocosms that can simulate oil transport caused by tides, water currents, and air flows. They will collect time-series molecular data to characterize interactions between the environment and microbial communities and will use hydrocarbon composition data to determine the degradation rates of specific hydrocarbon classes. The incubation treatments will vary in oxygen concentration, temperature, and level of nutrients to test how different conditions affect microbial oil degradation.

Click to enlarge) A conceptual overview of the modeling analysis of shore sand microbial communities. (Figure by Kostas Konstantinidis)

The team will use their findings to create a model that links microbial sedimentary oil degradation to key environmental variables. The goal is to present this model in a format that managers and decision makers can use when planning responses to future oil spills. Huettel explains, “This project aims to open the ‘black box’ surrounding the mechanisms of buried oil degradation and generate a tool that can forecast oil degradation pathways and the potential environmental and health risks associated with petroleum hydrocarbons still persisting in the coastal environment.”

The project’s investigators are Markus Huettel of Florida State University and Kostas Konstantinidis and Joel Kostka of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Their project is A Systems Approach to Improve Predictions of Biodegradation and Ecosystem Recovery in Coastal Marine Sediments Impacted by Oil Spills.

************

Unraveling the Mystery of Oil Compounds, Weathering, and Toxicity

David Podgorski uses a Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometer at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory to analyze weathered oil samples and changes to their molecular structure. (Photo by Kristen Coyne)

Responders to the Deepwater Horizon spill used large quantities of dispersant to facilitate oil biodegradation, but could a different method be safer for the environment?

Oil compounds take on additional oxygen atoms as physical and chemical processes weather them. However, the classical methods that scientists use to analyze and describe these molecular compositional changes cannot detect the new oxidized products, limiting our understanding of their molecular structure, environmental fate, and potential toxicity.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative awarded Dr. Ryan Rodgers a grant to investigate these products, the processes that yield them, and their potential toxicity using classical and new techniques. Rodgers and co-principle investigators Chris Reddy and Christoph Aeppli will use their findings to create a model that will help determine the rate, mass, and type of weathering products of future spills.

Christoph Aeppli labels oil samples collected from Alabama beaches. Chemical analysis of these samples will determine the degree of natural oil degradation that occurred since the Deepwater Horizon spill. (Photo by Christopher Reddy)

The team will use gas chromatography methods to analyze oil samples collected immediately after and in the years following the spill, identifying their chemical “fingerprints,” determining their origin, and characterizing changes to their molecular structure.

Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry (FTICRMS) – an analytical technique with significantly higher resolution than classical methods – will help researchers track molecular-level changes in the oxidized transformation products created during weathering.

The researchers will investigate how structure affects weathering by separating unweathered oil components into saturates (waxy oil compounds) and one to five+ ringed aromatics (hydrocarbons containing ring-shaped carbon structures) and then irradiating the compounds using simulated sunlight or incubating them in a dark mesocosm containing oil-degrading bacteria. The team will screen the resulting transformation products’ toxicity to determine the most and least harmful compounds.

Chris Reddy collects oil samples on Alabama beaches. These sand-oil aggregates continue to wash ashore six years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. (Photo by Christoph Aeppli)

The combined degradation and toxicity data will reveal whether the individual saturates and aromatic fractions release more or less toxic transformation products in response to biodegradation or photo-oxidation.

The researchers hope that responders to future spills can use this study’s model to examine oil compounds and inform remediation decisions based on degradation processes that yield less toxic transformation products.

Rodgers gave the example that, if biodegradation would release highly toxic compounds from a certain oil type, responders may decide to let surface oil be photo-oxidized or burned. Alternatively, if photo-oxidation would lead to toxic compounds, responders may choose to use dispersants to facilitate biodegradation.

Huan Chen tests the toxicity of photo-irradiated samples to identify which original crude oil components become more toxic with weathering. (Photo by Phoebe Z. Ray)

“We didn’t have the technology to do this kind of research ten or fifteen years ago,” said Rodgers. “Now, we can collect massive amounts of information about petroleum’s structural classes and how photo-oxidation and biodegradation make them more or less toxic. This information gives us as a community the best shot to understand how spilled petroleum will behave in the environment and will be immensely informative moving forward.”

The project’s researchers are Ryan Rodgers of Florida State University, Chris Reddy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, andChristoph Aeppli of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Their project is The State-of-the-Art Unraveling of the Biotic and Abiotic Chemical Evolution of Macondo Oil: 2010-2018.

************

Phoebe Ray works on a solar simulator at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which will generate photo-oxidized oil samples for subsequent analysis. (Photo by Stephen Bilenky)

Using Luminescent Radiation to Describe “Forgotten” PAHs

Bassam Alfarhani aligns the laser beam of the multidimensional luminescence system. (Provided by Andres Campiglia)

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with high molecular weights (HMW-PAHs) are potentially toxic compounds that can cause genetic mutations. However, current environmental monitoring and analyses of human health risks only focus on the sixteen PAHs that the Environmental Protection Agency considers priority pollutants.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative awarded Dr. Andres D. Campiglia a grant to expand environmental monitoring efforts to include higher weight PAHs. These PAHs are difficult to quantify because they appear in lower concentrations than priority PAHs and the analytical standards for them is incomplete. Campiglia and his team aim to develop an analytical approach that will reliably detect, identify, and produce standards for HMW-PAHs in environmental Gulf of Mexico samples.

Andres Campiglia (front) and his colleague Bassam Alfarhani (back) monitor the laser output of the multidimensional luminescence system. (Provided by Andres Campiglia)

The team will study HMW-PAH isomers – molecules with the same chemical formula but different chemical structures. The chemical analysis technique that they will use is based on Shpol’skii spectroscopy and will encourage isomers to emit luminescent radiation as either fluorescence or phosphorescence using a pulsed laser. The researchers will compare each isomer’s emission pattern and lifetime decay (the time it takes the emissions to fade) with existing standards to determine their molecular structures and distinguish them from other compounds.

Sample vessel of fiber optic probe used for taking photoluminescence measurements at liquid nitrogen (77K) and liquid helium (4.2K) temperatures. (Provided by Andres Campiglia)

The team’s observations will be the de facto standards they use to study high-weight PAHs’ behavior and extend the database of PAHs that may appear in oil spill samples. Once their method has been verified, they will expand their methodology to include PAHs with even higher molecular weights, alkylated PAHs (which represent a large fraction of PAHs found in crude oil and oil-contaminated seafood), and PAHs containing sulfur (the principal atom that replaces carbon in coal, crude oil, tar, and their by-products).

“It is of paramount importance to determine the most toxic PAH isomers, even if less-toxic isomers are more abundant,” Campiglia stated. “Through collaborations with other scientists involved in the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, we should have the ability to track down specific isomers and better understand their environmental fate in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Andres Campiglia discusses his research with fellow scientists. (Provided by Andres Campiglia)

This project’s researchers are Andres D. Campiglia, James K. Harper, and Fernando J. Uribe-Romo of the University of Central Florida’s Department of Chemistry. Their project is A Combined Analytical and Synthetic Approach Based on Line Narrowing Spectroscopy for Specific Isomer Determination of Petroleum Oil Spills.

************

Bassam Alfarhani conducts 4.2K measurements using the fiber optic probe. (Provided by Andres Campiglia)

Ten Outstanding Education Products Six Years After Deepwater Horizon

Students construct their own drifter after being inspired by “Bob the Drifter”. (Provided by: Jenny Harter)

Communicating oil spill research is essential to improve society’s understanding about spills and their ability to respond to and mitigate them.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) has been funding spill-related research since 2010.

Here are ten outstanding education products and resources that GoMRI and its science community have developed to share what they are learning, doing, and how they are preparing the next generation of scientists for future spill research.

Products You Can Watch…

“Film provides an opportunity to marry the power of ideas with the power of images.”
— Steven Bochco, television writer and producer

Award-winning short films for young audiences “Drones at the Beach” and “Bob the Drifter” use easy-to-understand language and imagery to explain two technologies that scientists use to track an oil slick as it moves with ocean currents towards beaches.

Syndicated outdoors program Gary Finch Outdoors, in partnership with Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC), produced over a dozen short videos highlighting deep-sea research. The videos comprise the Research Video Series and contributed to the E/V Nautilus 2014 Cruise Videos and the Tools of the Trade series.

The Screenscope film production company developed the documentary Dispatches from the Gulf, narrated by Matt Damon, as an episode of the award-winning series Journey to Planet Earth. The film is available for screenings. Screenscope is offering two live streaming events of the film on April 20, 2016, at 2 pm and 7 pm EST to mark the Deepwater Horizon’s sixth anniversary.

The short film “Deciphering Oil Spill Impacts in Louisiana Wetlands” describes GoMRI-funded research on the chemical evolution, biological degradation, and environmental stresses of oil on Louisiana wetlands.

Products You Can Hear…

“Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.”
— Robert McKee, writer

The Loop: Stories from the Gulf is a podcast series produced by David Levin and Ari Daniel Shapiro that takes listeners under the sea, into the mud, and back to the lab to explore ongoing research. There are currently eight episodes of The Loop available for streaming including:

The Pressure Is On: In “Under Pressure”, German scientists modeled the Deepwater Horizon blowout in a tank that can simulate the water pressure level of the blowout depth to track the oil’s movement and better understand oil dynamics at extreme depths.

“Under Pressure” (07:43):

Seeking New Insights from Decades-Old Spill: In “The Gulf’s Big Blowouts” and “Return to Ixtoc”, an international team of researchers hoping to predict how Deepwater Horizon may impact the Gulf decades into the future set out to study a spill of the past – the 1979 Ixtoc I blowout.

“The Gulf’s Big Blowouts” (08:08):

“Return to Ixtoc” (9:03):

Products for the Classroom…

“The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.”
— Aristotle

The multidisciplinary high school curriculum developed by Deep-C draws connections between the theoretical nature of science and real-world applications and addresses issues such as environmental disasters, their impacts on ocean ecosystems, and nature’s recovery mechanisms. Each of the curriculum’s five modules focuses on a main research area (geomorphology, geochemistry, ecology, physical oceanography, and modeling) and includes five cumulative lessons, background information on the topic, relevant supplementary reading materials, a glossary, and an assessment.

Free downloadable lesson plans and teaching materials bring deep sea and oil spill research to the classroom. DEEPEND has created lesson plans for grades K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 that cover deep sea topics ranging from bioluminescence to topography and include curricula, experiment instructions, and coloring sheets. Several of CWC’s K-12 Science Classroom Activities, which include lesson plans and fun, science-based activities covering a wide range of oil spill science topics, have been translated into Spanish to reach a broader, more-diverse audience.

Products You Can Explore…

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
— Marcel Proust, novelist

The Smithsonian Ocean Portal is an online complement to the Sant Ocean Hall in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Pieces they have developed include research stories, interactive infographics, blog posts, interviews with GoMRI scientists, and more.

Student Stories highlights some outstanding graduate students to inspire future generations of scientists. Each story describes individual students’ journeys into oil spill research, their current research, and hopes for the future.

The Sea Grant oil spill outreach team creates short brochures that answer coastal audiences’ top questions about the oil spill including fisheries, oiled beaches, and dispersants. These brochures synthesize peer-reviewed oil spill science for a broad range of general audiences, particularly those whose livelihoods depend on a healthy Gulf.

************

This research was made possible in part by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to theConsortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE), Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf (ECOGIG) Consortium, the Center for Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems (C-IMAGE I and C-IMAGE II), the Deepsea to Coast Connectivity in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (Deep-C)Consortium, the Deep-Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf of Mexico (DEEPEND) Consortium, and the Coastal Waters Consortium (CWC).

Dispatches from the Gulf is made possible in part by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI).

GoMRI and the Sea Grant programs of the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Mississippi-Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas) have partnered to create an oil spill science outreach program.

GoMRI and the Smithsonian have a partnership to enhance oil spill science content on the Ocean Portal website.

The GoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visithttp://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Videos + Lesson Plans: Dispatches from the Gulf Documentary

Screenscope, Inc. has completed production of three Dispatches from the Gulf documentary films, which features scientists working to better understand the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Dispatches from the Gulf is part of the Journey to Planet Earth series and is narrated by Matt Damon.

All three films and corresponding educational materials are available to watch for free below. They are also available (along with 50 short videos designed to accompany the documentaries) on the Dispatches from the Gulf YouTube Channel. Major funding for these additions to Journey to Planet Earth was provided by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative – scientists working together to understand and restore the health of marine and coastal ecosystems.

Dispatches from the Gulf:

In the years after Deepwater Horizon, a global team of scientists investigates the environmental health of the Gulf and its impact on local communities. A coalition of academic institutions, government, and NGOs are working together to protect and restore one of our planet’s most valuable natural resources. Their ultimate goal is to learn how to cope with future oil spills.

Educational Materials:

Dispatches from the Gulf 2:

The unprecedented scientific mission to study the lasting impacts of Deepwater Horizon continues. Barely half of the pre-spill dolphin population survives, their calves dying or miscarried. Fish hearts cannot beat properly. Crab burrows leak oily rivulets into wetlands poisoning fish nurseries. Will this ecosystem recover? Will we be able to prevent future oil spills and the ensuing environmental devastation?

Educational Materials:

Dispatches from the Gulf 3:

“Has the Gulf of Mexico recovered from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?” As the tenth anniversary of the disaster approaches, this question is regularly posed. Scientists have spent nearly that long studying its environmental impact on humans, wildlife, and the ecosystem. They provide assessments of the current state of the Gulf, but lingering questions are challenging their ability to predict the long-term impacts.

Educational Materials:

Educators Guide for Episode 16: Dispatches from the Gulf 3

Trailer: Dispatches from the Gulf (2016)

Dispatches From The Gulf (Credit: Screenscope) The Deepwater Horizon oil spill initiated an unprecedented response effort and mobilized the largest, coordinated scientific research endeavor around an ocean-related event in history; the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI).

The Screenscope film production company is developing “Dispatches from the Gulf” to help tell the story about the scientists involved and their research to improve society’s ability to understand, respond to, and mitigate the impacts of petroleum pollution and related stressors of the marine and coastal ecosystems. The movie will air later this year as a new episode of the award-winning Journey to Planet Earth Series.

For additional information about the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative:

Watch this video: The Making of a Ten-Year Gulf of Mexico Research Program;
Use the GoMRI Research Information System to learn about funded projects, people, and publications; and
Use the GoMRI Information and Data Cooperative to discover and access scientific datasets resulting from GoMRI-funded research.

“Dispatches from the Gulf” is made possible in part by a grant from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). TheGoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Grad Student Rogers Traces Gulf Oil as Scientific CSI

Kelsey Rogers collects samples of sediment particles onboard the R/V Endeavor’s laboratory. (Photo provided by Professor Joseph Montoya, Georgia Institute of Technology)

Kelsey Rogers looks for evidence of oil and methane intrusion into Gulf of Mexico water and sediment, but finding these hydrocarbons is only the beginning of her work. Like a scientific crime scene investigator, Kelsey analyzes the chemical fingerprints of oil and gas and uses them to identify their source, such as from an oil spill or a natural seafloor seep.

Currently working towards her Ph.D. in Oceanography at Florida State University (FSU), Kelsey is a GoMRI Scholar with the ECOGIG consortium. Kelsey talks of her journey from geology to oceanography and how every step along the way is important.

Her Path

Kelsey Rogers onboard the R/V Endeavor, one of five field expeditions she participated in, collecting water and sediment samples in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo provided by Ryan Sibert, Ph.D. Student, University of Georgia)

“As a kid I had a huge rock collection—I loved to pick up anything shiny on the ground,” Kelsey recalled. She realized after her first undergraduate geology class at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill that she could make a career out of something that had always fascinated her. Working in the UNC isotope geochemistry lab, Kelsey wrote a research paper about using carbon isotope evidence from deer teeth to identify where the animals lived.

“Carbon isotopes are really awesome,” Kelsey said of her favorite research tool. “You can trace any number of things with them.”

FSU oceanography professor Dr. Jeff Chanton frequently collaborated with researchers at UNC, where he previously studied and taught. Chanton was using isotope analyses to track the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its potential impacts on the marine food web. Kelsey learned about Chanton’s oil spill research and saw a natural fit with her ecological research using carbon isotopes. She joined the first ECOGIG project as a master’s student in 2012 and also conducted research with the Deep-C consortium. Kelsey continues her graduate work with Chanton as a research team member with the second ECOGIG consortium.

Her Work

Kelsey Rogers processes samples onboard the vessel’s wet lab. (Photo provided by Kelsey Rogers, courtesy of Deep-C)

Kelsey identifies the carbon isotopes in Gulf particulate and sediment samples to track oil and methane through the marine ecosystem. She has joined five Gulf research sea expeditions since starting at FSU, collecting sediment at various depths and freezing them for lab processing. She also collected water column samples 20 liters at a time, then filtered and dried suspended particles for later lab isotope analysis.

Kelsey treats the samples with an acid wash to remove calcium carbonate from shells that could interfere with lab processing. Using a mass spectrometer at FSU, she calculates the stable carbon isotopes and then sends them to the University of Georgia to analyze their radiocarbon levels. These tests can take up to six weeks.

Certain key isotope numbers serve as chemical fingerprints, signaling that the samples contain oil and methane. Kelsey studies the stable and radiocarbon levels to determine how much oil and/or methane is present, how old it is, and where it originated. Natural seeps in the gulf are like hydrocarbon springs, releasing oil and methane to the Gulf’s water column. Kelsey can trace these hydrocarbons’ path through the water column using the carbon isotopes. She has found hydrocarbons consistent with a Deepwater Horizon point source and from GC 600, the largest natural seep in the Gulf.

Her Learning

Kelsey states emphatically that working on GoMRI projects has honed her skills while deepening her love for science. She credits the Compass science communication workshops with teaching her how to more clearly share her findings with different audiences.

Kelsey Rogers worked alongside marine technician Jason Agnich to collect water and sediment samples from the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo provided by Professor Joseph Montoya, Georgia Institute of Technology)

The camaraderie among ECOGIG members has helped Kelsey develop professional friendships that will support her throughout her career. “I’ve met so many great people on these research cruises,” she said. “Everyone is so gung-ho about working together and helping one another. It’s a wonderful community.”

Kelsey’s advisor, Jeff Chanton, has taught her to go where her interests take her and not feel limited by her chosen field. Involved in many diverse projects himself, Chanton has shown Kelsey that oceanography skills are transferable to other subjects that strike her interest.

“With Jeff as my advisor, I don’t feel like I’m pigeonholed,” she explained. “He’s taught me you don’t have to do just one thing for your entire career—you can be creative.”

Her Future

Kelsey Rogers spent many hours processing samples in R/V Endeavor’s main lab. (Photo provided by Professor Joseph Montoya, Georgia Institute of Technology)

Kelsey expects to finish her Ph.D. in late 2017 or early 2018. Feeling drawn to an industry or government position, she wants to provide the most help in a future event, though she clarifies that might not be mitigation. “I don’t really want to do cleanup,” she said. “I want to get ahead of the problem.” She suggests finding ways to make exploration safer or helping to craft government environmental policies as possibilities.

Wherever she winds up, Kelsey believes all the steps along her journey are necessary and meaningful: “I started out as a beaker cleaner in the lab. But those beakers need to be absolutely sterile for the experiments to be valid. All the jobs in science are important.”

Praise for Kelsey

Researchers use a multi-corer to collect sediment samples in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo provided by Kelsey Rogers)

Chanton said Kelsey has boundless energy and is undaunted by difficult tasks. Her great attitude has led to a leadership role in the Thalassic society, FSU’s graduate school organization. A Thalassic project manager, she sits on the executive committee and assists the president and vice president in organizing and running different functions throughout the year.

“Kelsey has a can-do approach that is contagious,” Chanton said. “On the ECOGIG cruises, she never rests. When her own work is completed, she surveys the deck to see who needs a hand with theirs.”

Chanton said that in addition to field missions, Kelsey also shines at outreach events where she is engaging and patient when explaining her work. He said she can make complex topics as simple as they need to be depending on the audience, and her natural confidence puts people at ease.

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Kelsey Rogers and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

Visit the ECOGIG website to learn more about their work.

************

This research was made possible in part by a grant from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). The GoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Creating Improved Dispersants and Delivery Systems for Oil Spill Mitigation

(Click image to enlarge and for more info)

Research about commercial dispersant safety has seen increased efforts to identify benign alternatives and improve current dispersant systems since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Preliminary research suggests that dispersants formulated as gels may be a viable alternative to liquid dispersants and may address certain problems and concerns about Corexit 9500 use and application.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative recently awarded Dr. Vijay John a grant to pursue the development of a surfactant gel dispersant and expand research that he and colleagues conducted about halloysite clay nanotubes as a dispersant delivery system.

John’s team believes that these biodegradable materials could have applications as safe technologies for chemical herding, a process that uses surfactants at the air-water interface to form oil layers thick enough to be burned or skimmed.

(Click image to enlarge and for more info)

John and his team are developing a gel formulation that contains all but two Corexit 9500 components – Span 80 and the solvent propylene glycol – and replaces a significant amount of the potentially harmful surfactant DOSS with lecithin, a food-grade emulsifier.

Surfactants help break up oil by lowering the surface tension at the oil-water interface, and early tests have shown that this new gel formulation reduces surface tension as successfully as Corexit. The team will investigate the physical characteristics of gel-created dispersions and assess the gel’s effect on oil degradation compared to Corexit.

The researchers will then examine if the clay nanotubes could be used to deliver the gel to an oil-water interface, similar to a surface oil slick. Problems with traditional liquid dispersants most often arise during and after their delivery to the ocean surface.

The gel has a crystalline mesoscale structure that ranges from hexagonal to sheet-like and onion-like multilamellar structures. (Images by Olasehinde Owoseni)

Responders apply liquid dispersants as a mist, but it tends to roll off of weathered surface oil and is often washed away before oil can be mitigated. However, nanotubes and naturally buoyant gel dispersants stick to the weathered oil and allow a more direct application of dispersant to an oil spill.

“It’s like a targeted drug delivery system,” explained John. “If you want to deliver drugs to only a tumor and not healthy organs, you have to contain them in something that will target the tumor. We’re trying to do the equivalent in the marine environment using naturally buoyant gel and dispersant-filled nanotubes to target the oil-water interface.”

Vijay John (pictured) and his team are investigating safer, more efficient alternatives to current methods of oil dispersal. (Provided by Paula Burch-Celentano/Tulane University)

The project’s researchers are Vijay John and Diane Blake of Tulane University and Yuri M. Lvov and Donghui Zhang of Louisiana State University. Their project is The Design of Synergistic Dispersant and Herding Systems using Tubular Clay Structures and Gel Phase Materials.

************

Fact Sheets: Sea Grant Releases Educational Brochures on Dispersants

2491 The Sea Grant oil spill outreach team released three new informational brochures about the dispersants used to treat the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. These brochures synthesize peer-reviewed oil spill science for a broad range of general audiences, particularly those who live and work across the Gulf Coast.

Chemical Dispersants and Their Role in Oil Spill Response

Learn why and how responders use dispersants during oil spills, in general, and specifically during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Fate, Transport, and Effectiveness of Dispersants Used in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Learn about research that addresses dispersant effectiveness and persistence in the marine environment and its first-time use below surface at the wellhead.

Responses of Aquatic Life in the Gulf of Mexico to Oil and Dispersants

Learn how dispersants impact aquatic life and how lab and field studies are providing better understanding about the implications of exposure to oil and dispersants.

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team offers public seminars across the Gulf Coast. Click here to view upcoming science seminars and read about recently-held events. To receive email updates about seminars, publications, and the outreach team, click here.

************

GoMRI and the Sea Grant programs of the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Mississippi-Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas) have partnered to create an oil spill science outreach program.

Smithsonian Highlights How Scientists Use Genomics to Study Oil Spills

Jonathan Delgardio and Will A. Overholt (Georgia Institute of Technology) collect samples from a Pensacola Beach sand trench with oil layers. (Photo by Markus Huettel)

Genomics is a powerful method to track things that humans cannot see. Months and years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, many people wondered where the oil went or where it might be lingering or what it may affect after it was no longer visible. Scientists are using genomic techniques such as DNA sequencing to help answer some of these questions.

The Smithsonian posted an article featuring scientists Joel Kostka, Jack Gilbert, and David Portnoy. Kostka’s work focuses on using genetic markers of microbes to determine whether or not shorelines have been affected by the oil spill. Gilbert’s work focused on identifying microbes who feed on carbon as a way to determine if oil is being degraded in environments such as sediment. Portnoy’s work focuses on detecting possible long-term impacts on fish that live in waters exposed to the oil spill.

Read the Ocean Portal article to learn how genomics help us understand oil spill impacts.

For more information about oil spill research that employs genomics, read:

************

GoMRI and the Smithsonian have a partnership to enhance oil spill science content on the Ocean Portal website.

Grad Student Young Studies Gulf Water at Its Most Basic Level

Jordan Young takes water samples in his new position at the University of California at Davis’ Bodega Marine Laboratory. (Photo courtesy of Jordan Young)

Chemical engineer Jordan Young has found his happy place on a research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. He’s looking for changes in ocean acidity following the Deepwater Horizon spill. As the oil biologically degrades, some of it oxidizes to carbon dioxide and may increase acidification.

The Earth’s oceans have maintained a relatively stable pH level for millions of years. Scientists suspect that the 2010 oil spill may have made the Gulf more acidic, but they need more data to determine that. That’s where Jordan comes into the picture.

Jordan recently completed his master’s degree in chemical oceanography at Texas A&M University when he was a GoMRI scholar with the GISR consortium. He shared his journey from upstate New York to the Gulf of Mexico and his research on the Gulf’s health.

His Path

Jordan uses down time on a GISR research cruise to catch fish for dinner. (Photo courtesy of GISR)

Jordan grew up near the border between New York and Canada. Most of his childhood memories included the St. Lawrence River, and he loved being on the water. His interest in water quality grew and influenced his decision to pursue a chemical engineering degree at Clarkson University. Jordan found a way to put his passion to work by joining a Texas A&M research team that was developing a nutrient sensor to measure nitrate and phosphate levels.

Jordan took a four-month internship after graduating in 2010 with Raytheon, a missile-building defense company. Uncomfortable with helping to put more weapons into the world, Jordan took a process engineering position with Corning Glass. Thousands of miles away, he watched the news about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill unfold with a feeling of powerlessness.

“I kept thinking, ‘I’m in the wrong job,’” Jordan recalled. “I should be down there helping, and instead I’m sitting at a desk watching and reading about it.”

He was pleased to learn that professor Shari Yvon-Lewis, a marine and atmospheric chemist, and other Texas A&M scientists had become involved in Gulf oil spill research. Jordan applied to their chemical oceanography master’s program and joined the GISR research team in 2012.

His Work

Jordan takes a weekly carbonate chemistry sample at Bodega Marine Lab in California. (Photo courtesy of Jordan Young)

Evidence in recent years points to marine waters around the globe becoming increasingly acidic. Ocean acidification can have wide ranging consequences, affecting the health of coral and other sea life, and oxidation of dissolved organic carbons like those in oil might contribute to this phenomenon.

Jordan’s research focused on understanding inorganic carbon’s behavior in deep water during and after the spill by painting a picture of a relatively healthy water column. He participated in multiple research cruises, collecting hundreds of water samples per expedition to measure carbon dioxide, dissolved inorganic carbon, and alkalinity levels.

He worked on the R/V Manta and the R/V Pelican, going out for days and sometimes weeks at a time, even venturing into Mexican waters once. His research team used a CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth profiler) equipped with a rosette water sampler and collected water samples at discrete depths around the Gulf. Each sample takes about an hour to process, so a week at sea requires three months or more for laboratory analysis.

The research cruises appealed to Jordan in part because they are not all work and no play. He used down time to troll using a line or net. Sometimes he provided fresh fish for dinner, and other times he caught interesting species for the crew to investigate. In one GISR blog post, Jordan described sighting a wahoo only to discover later that it was a barracuda. He also described technical difficulties they encountered, such as an overheating engine that required on-the-fly repairs. His engineering background really helped at these times.

His Learning

Jordan intended to obtain his Ph.D., but after discovering his love for field work, he switched to a master’s program. He explained that many doctorates direct studies from an office, planning experiments, crunching numbers, and preparing reports. Jordan learned quickly after completing his bachelor’s degree that office work was not for him. “I want to go out and take the samples and help analyze them. I want to actually do the work, rather than directing it,” explained Jordan.

Jordan said that he loved working on field data-gathering missions when multiple science teams went out simultaneously. He worked alongside researchers from all over the country, specialists in different marine science fields, and learned everything from new sampling techniques to details about their specialties.

Jordan attended the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science conferences in both Mobile and Houston. He enjoyed seeing the related research presented together and explained that although he focused on the water column, he was equally interested in learning how ocean acidification might impact coral reefs or oyster beds. Attending the conferences made him “super excited” about ongoing research and the work he could do when he finished his degree.

His Future

Jordan defended his thesis in June and taught a summer oceanography lab course at Texas A&M. He spent his free time looking for a job that used field work to benefit the environment.

He found a position as Marine Tech/Junior Scientist at the University of California, Davis’ Bodega Marine Laboratory. Working in Dr. Tessa Hill’s lab, Jordan analyzes the alkalinity and spectrophotometric pH of seawater samples for numerous projects. He takes weekly water samples a few hundred meters offshore to help understand the changing water chemistry throughout the year. Recently, he participated in running a tide pool experiment to learn about possible long-term impacts of changing ocean acidification.

Jordan is pleased to be using his research skills to improve our knowledge about ecosystem processes and health and to help mitigate negative effects going forward.

Praise for Jordan

Shari Yvon-Lewis reported that Jordan successfully worked in her lab from his first semester at Texas A&M. Regarding field work, she said that he handled going to sea very well, particularly considering that he had to “master a temperamental instrument to analyze his samples.”

Jordan’s research with GISR has made important contributions. “His results have implications for understanding the role of oil and gas degradation in the inorganic carbon chemistry of the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico,” said Yvon-Lewis.

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Jordan Young and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

Visit the GISR website to learn more about their work.

************

This research was made possible in part by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to the Gulf of Mexico Integrated Spill Response Consortium (GISR).

Curriculum: Gulf of Mexico Multidisciplinary High School Curriculum

A team of scientists and education staff developed a user-friendly curriculum to help students make connections between the theoretical nature of science and real world applications.

This education tool uses application-based science conducted by the Deep-C Consortium to improve Gulf of Mexico literacy and addresses issues such as environmental disasters, their impacts on ocean ecosystems, and nature’s recovery mechanisms.

The materials and lesson plans contained in this 144-page book align with Ocean Literacy Principles and Florida’s Next Generation Sunshine State Standards. The curriculum has five modules, each representing the main research areas of the Deep-C Consortium: geomorphology, geochemistry, ecology, physical oceanography, and modeling. Each module includes five cumulative lessons, background information on the topic, relevant supplementary reading materials, a glossary, and an assessment.

For a downloadable PDF version of the curriculum, click here. For more information, click here.

Grad Student Dasgupta Assesses Oil and Dispersant Toxicity to Fish DNA and Mortality

Subham conducts an ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase or EROD assay to measure the activity of the detoxifying enzyme CYP1A1 under PAH exposure. (Provided by Subham Dasgupta)

Subham Dasgupta’s dedication to understanding oil and dispersant toxicology stems from his roots in India. Having grown up in a community where fishes are an important part of the diet, his research assessing oil and dispersant exposure’s effect on fish health has a special importance for him.

“Oil spills can affect marine organisms, including the fish we eat,” he says. “This is particularly important for my country, which is surrounded on three sides by the sea. I hope that my research will help inform responders’ cleanup decisions and uncover new information about dispersed oil’s potential impacts on marine organisms.”

Subham is a marine sciences Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University and a GoMRI Scholar with the project Characterizing the Composition and Biogeochemical Behavior of Dispersants and Their Transformation Products in Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ecosystems. He shares his research and the important lessons he has learned from it.

His Path

As an undergraduate student at Presidency College (now University) in Kolkata, India, Subham was unsure of his direction. It was not until he began an environmental sciences master’s degree that he discovered his love for research. The many paths available to answer scientific questions and the possibility for collaboration across multiple disciplines excited him. His involvement with several research projects near Kolkata led him to pursue a Ph.D. in aquatic toxicology.

“I applied to programs in the United States because the education system and research quality are well-known,” Subham said. He connected with Dr. Anne McElroy, an aquatic toxicology professor with the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences graduate program. His work in her lab initially focused on analyzing the impacts of oxygenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure on the embryos of Japanese rice fish (also known as the medaka or Japanese killifish Oryzias latipes).

His Work

Subham’s comet assay technique measures DNA damage under different oil and dispersant component exposures. Results appear as “comets” such as this, where the “head” of the comet represents nucleoid with intact DNA and the “tail” represents damaged DNA that has migrated out due to electrophoresis. (Provided by Subham Dasgupta)

When McElroy joined a GoMRI-funded research group led by Mississippi State University’s Darrell Sparks, Subham’s research shifted to investigate the toxicity of Corexit 9500 and 9527 dispersants and their major components to sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus) embryos and larvae. He evaluated Corexit-exposed larvae and examined the impact of low concentrations of the surfactant DOSS on larvae survival and possible correlation of DOSS and other solvents with DNA damage.

Subham is now investigating potential toxicity amplification in fish under hypoxic conditions combined with Corexit and oil exposure. “Hypoxia is an increasing concern in coastal areas with river discharge,” he said. “River waters carry nutrients from fertilizers that can trigger phytoplankton blooms. The increased microbial activity leads to reductions in dissolved oxygen in the water. The Northern Gulf of Mexico has an expanding area of seasonal hypoxia.” His studies with sheepshead minnow larvae are indicating that Corexit and water-soluble oil components may stimulate an increased production of CYP1A, an enzyme that assists the transformation of PAHs into less-toxic compounds that the fish can expel. However, hypoxic conditions may reduce CYP1A activity, potentially contributing to accumulation of oil and dispersant components in fishes and posing a greater risk to aquatic organisms.

His Learning

Subham (right) poses with Anne McElroy (left) and a high school summer research fellow, who enjoyed working with Subham and McElroy so much that he created matching t-shirts for the group. (Provided by Anne McElroy)

Studying numerous compounds contained in oil and dispersants, Subham has become more aware of different ways to approach an experiment and found that a study’s path is often unpredictable. “You can’t always look at it from the linear perspective that A will lead to B. A might lead to B, C, and D, and it’s exciting how that works out,” he says. Communicating with other researchers has exposed him to new scientific techniques and perspectives that have helped advance his research. “I had good success incorporating some methods I heard about at last year’s Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference into my work,” he said. “There are many ways to look at the same problem, and that is what I love.”

One of the most important lessons Subham has learned from his advisor is that scientific research requires patience. “I’ve never seen her frown or complain, and that showed me that I need to be patient with what I’m doing,” he explains. Experiments can fail as often as they succeed, and he believes that scientists should not view failures negatively. Instead, he focuses on brainstorming new ways to solve problems. “I think focusing on overcoming your failures teaches you something about life,” he says. “You can’t always expect the best – sometimes you have to deal with the worst to get the best.”

Subham’s journey has confirmed for him that students considering a career in science should pursue science because they want to, not because they think they should. “Like all fields, science is full of pluses and minuses, happiness and disappointment, success and failure,” he says. “It’s not as if you come into the field and immediately have success. It’s hard work.” Subham finds that as long as you love your field, the struggles will always be worth it.

His Future

After completing his Ph.D., Subham would like to serve in a post-doc position and continue in academia as a researcher and professor. Ultimately, he wants to return to India and help develop the marine science and toxicology field using his education and experience. “For a country surrounded by water and influenced by a large number of major rivers, the study of aquatic toxicology needs to be better developed. Given the opportunity, I would love to execute my training back in India – hopefully that will happen.”

Praise for Subham

Subham’s advisor, Dr. Anne McElroy, said that he is dedicated to his research and described him as extremely enthusiastic, unfailingly optimistic, and willing to do whatever is required to meet his research goals. “A comet assay technique that Subham adapted for use on sheepshead minnow larvae allowed us to detect direct DNA damage and demonstrate that oxygenated PAHs have similar if not greater genotoxicity than parent PAHs,” she says. McElroy is excited about his future as a scientist, explaining that Subham’s broad interests give her confidence that he will go far.

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Subham Dasgupta and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

Visit the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Science website to learn more about their work.

************

This research was made possible in part by a grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to the project Characterizing the Composition and Biogeochemical Behavior of Dispersants and Their Transformation Products in Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ecosystems. The GoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Grad Student Owoseni Uses Small Particles to Tackle Large Spills

Sehinde, at the Tulane University Coordinated Instrumentation Facility, sits beside the scanning electron microscope he uses to image halloysite nanotubes and oil droplets stabilized by them. (Photo by Chike Ezeh)

An interest in oil spill research led Olasehinde Owoseni from Ile-Ife, an ancient city in Nigeria, to the Louisiana coast. Such a change might seem intimidating, but Sehinde sees it is as a small step toward his greater goal.

His research examines the use of miniscule clay particles for the development of safer and more cost-efficient oil spill remediation technologies.

Sehinde is a chemical and biomolecular engineering Ph.D. student at Tulane University and a GoMRI Scholar with C-MEDS. He explains his research and personal journey as a scientist.

His Path

Sehinde is proud to be a chemical engineer because he feels that transforming natural materials into useful products creates “a vital link between scientific understanding and societal application.” He completed an undergraduate degree at Obafemi Awolowo University – Ile-Ife and began his chemical engineering career at PZ Cussons, an international detergent and cosmetics manufacturer. Working in industry gave him a taste of practical engineering, but he had a deep desire to continue his education. While researching graduate schools, he heard about dispersant technology research at Tulane University led by Dr. Vijay John, director of C-MEDS. Sehinde was eager to take part in the search for more ecofriendly dispersant systems and enrolled in Tulane’s chemical and biomolecular engineering doctoral program. There, he joined the lab of his advisor Dr. John, whose research aims to design the next generation of dispersants.

His Work

Sehinde uses liquid nitrogen to freeze oil droplets stabilized by halloysite nanotubes. Cryogenic imaging of these droplets will allow researchers to visualize the nanotubes and how they attach to the surface of oil dispersed in water. (Photo by Chike Ezeh)

Sehinde’s initial research focused on improving oil dispersants by replacing potentially harmful components with natural materials. Dispersants contain substances that lower surface tension (surfactants) and substances that disperse oil for microbial consumption (solvents). He considered these components’ roles and saw the potential to replace solvents used in existing dispersants with halloysite, a naturally occurring clay composed of tiny nanotubes. “Instead of using completely solid particles, we chose hollow particles that could be filled with surfactant,” he explains. “This is the first time the use of hollow particles has been applied to oil spill remediation.”

Sehinde loaded surfactant into the nanotubes using vacuum suction and then applied them to the surface where oil and water meet. He found that surfactant-loaded nanotubes were more effective at dispersing oil and keeping it dispersed than commercially-available dispersants. The nanotubes released surfactant slowly, creating smaller droplets that are easier for oil-degrading microbes to eat. The nanotubes also linked together across the oil’s surface, which prevented droplets from regrouping into a larger form. Sehinde’s halloysite research resulted in a Langmuir journal article and was featured on the GoMRI website, Study Finds Ecofriendly Clay Delivers and Improves Oil Spill Treating Agents.

Sehinde uses Tulane’s rotary evaporator to load surfactants into halloysite nanotubes through vacuum suction and solvent evaporation. (Photo by Regan Manayan)

The halloysite experiment’s success led Sehinde to consider other ways the clay nanotubes could be used for oil spill response. His current research examines how loading nanotubes with magnetic materials could track oil’s movement through the ocean. The concept is based on nuclear magnetic resonance, which is when atoms in a magnetic field absorb electromagnetic radiation and re-emit it at a specific frequency. Magnetic clay nanotubes applied at the boundary between oil and water may cause oil atoms to respond to a magnetic field differently than bulk ocean water, indicating oil presence. Sehinde is also curious if magnet-loaded nanotubes could be used to help skim surface oil and if loading nanotubes with nutrients could help microbes degrade oil more quickly. “Those are some directions we can go, but we are taking it one thing at a time,” he explains.

His Learning

Working with C-MEDS has shown Sehinde that collaborating and exchanging knowledge are often the driving forces behind scientific discovery. He has enjoyed the C-MEDS research community because it allows him to learn and contribute simultaneously. “I’ve learned a lot about how science moves forward,” he says. “While you learn from people, people also learn from you. You always have to look at new things and think in new ways. This experience taught me how to be a good scientist.” Looking back at what he has learned, his advice to others considering a science career is that “a constant appetite for learning and a passionate commitment to excellence are essential qualities for a scientist.”

Sehinde conducts room temperature imaging of halloysite nanotubes with magnetic materials on the surface. (Photo by Chike Ezeh)

C-MEDS outreach activities have taught Sehinde how to better communicate with young people and stimulate their interest in science and engineering. He participated in middle school and high school outreach visits, explaining why oil spills occur and what might happen if they go untreated. He demonstrated how adding surfactant or particles can help break up oil in water so that the oil mixes with the water. “I did the experiment first,” he explained, “then, I let the students do it so they can see that it’s real – it’s science.” By stimulating student interest in oil spill treatments that incorporate natural materials, Sehinde believes his work to help reduce dispersants’ environmental impacts might gain public support. He had an opportunity to show high school students from a Louisiana fishing community how a single oil spill can have large impacts. This interaction was particularly memorable for Sehinde, “I enjoyed explaining the science and then relating it to their community. That form of outreach has been a really rewarding part of my work.”

His Future

Sehinde’s oil spill research has inspired him to apply his experience in a different field, improving the technology that powers our lives. In the future, he would like to conduct industry research on new and emerging energy systems, “I’d like to create ways to deliver power with minimal environmental impacts and explore alternatives to oil and gas.”

Praise for Sehinde

Dr. John identified determination as the force behind Sehinde’s abilities as a scientist. “He is a highly motivated student,” John said. “He is able to anticipate directions, driven by his own curiosity.” John explained that these characteristics have made Sehinde an important element of his lab, “He has been a joy to work with. The other graduate students in the department view him with much affection and respect. He is a role model for them, mentoring newer students and generating ideas with more senior students, some of which have led to collaborations with my faculty colleagues.”

Despite Sehinde’s strong personal drive, John describes him as being “quiet and scholarly” – someone who speaks through his work. “He thinks very creatively. Oftentimes, when we discuss research and ideas, he surprises me with subtle statements that indicate that he has not only thought of the idea but that he has also done the key experiment to validate his hypothesis,” John explained. “Sometimes, I wish Sehinde would argue a research point with me, but that is simply not his style. He listens, never pushes his opinion, and just quietly does his work. And, when it is done, it is clear that he has thought the problem through.”

John also praised Sehinde’s ability to communicate science effectively. He noted that Sehinde won 2nd place in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environmental Division Graduate Student Paper Award, which recognizes outstanding graduate student contributions to environmental protection through chemical engineering.

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Olasehinde Owoseni and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

Visit the C-MEDS website to learn more about their work.

************

This research was made possible in part by a grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to theConsortium for the Molecular Engineering of Dispersant Systems (C-MEDS). The GoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Video: High School Teacher Holds Class on the Beach

A CPALMS perspective Video.

Video: How Crude Oil is Formed and How it Behaves in the Environment

Chris Reddy, an oil scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and research for DEEP-C, explains how crude oil is formed and how it behaves in the environment.

A CPALMS perspective Video by Chris Reddy.

Video: Using Oil Fingerprints to Explain the Origins of Spilled Oil

Humans aren’t the only ones who get their fingerprints taken. Learn how this scientist is like a crime scene investigator using oil fingerprints to explain the origins of spilled oil.

A CPALMS perspective Video by Chris Reddy.

Video: Don’t Cry Over Spilled Oil. Take Action Instead!

Don't cry over spilled oil. Take action instead! Learn how scientists are studying what happens to spilled oil and over time how it affects the environment.

A CPALMS perspective video by Catherine Carmichael.

CWC Movie

The Coastal Waters Consortium (CWC) came together in early 2012 to assess the chemical evolution, biological degradation, and environmental stresses of petroleum and dispersant within Gulf of Mexico coastal and shelf ecosystems. CWC research and education and outreach programs are funded for 3 years by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) was formed in May 2010 when BP committed $500 million over a 10-year period to create a broad independent research program to be conducted at research institutions primarily in the US Gulf Coast States. The mission of GoMRI is to investigate the impacts of the oil, dispersed oil, and dispersant on the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico and affected coastal States in a broad context of improving fundamental understanding of the dynamics of such events and their environmental stresses and public health implications. GoMRI will also develop improved spill mitigation, oil and gas detection, characterization and remediation technologies.

Grad Student Li Creates Waves for Oil Dispersion Studies

n an acrylic wave tank he designed and built himself at the Johns Hopkins Laboratory for Experimental Fluid Mechanics, Cheng observes a mechanically generated breaking wave and its associated turbulent flows. (Photo credit: Trevor Holmgren)

In an acrylic wave tank he designed and built himself at the Johns Hopkins Laboratory for Experimental Fluid Mechanics, Cheng observes a mechanically generated breaking wave and its associated turbulent flows. (Photo credit: Trevor Holmgren)

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 how dispersed oil travels.

Cheng is an engineering Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University and a GoMRI Scholar with DROPPS. He explains why he is so invested in oil spill research and the lessons he has learned along the way.

His Path

Cheng has always envisioned a career in science and engineering. However, he did not consider environmental fluid mechanics until he started pursuing graduate school. When applying to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), he heard that Dr. Joseph Katz was an expert in this field, conducting research for many years on the mixing of water with diesel fuel and the effects of turbulence on the breakup and transport of oil. He also learned that Dr. Katz’s research had made notable progress to understand the formation and dynamics of micron-size oil drops in water. Though still an undergraduate at the time, learning about this research sparked Cheng’s interest in fluid mechanics.

As a new JHU graduate student, Cheng began his research studying bottom boundary layer flows off the New Jersey coast. While on board a research vessel, he had an experience that turned his interest in understanding the fluid mechanics of oil and water into a passion. Seasickness sidelined Cheng for several days, but when he recovered and went up on deck for some much-needed fresh air, what he saw stunned him. “The beauty of the sea struck me,” he says. “The astounding power of the waves and the amazing beauty of ocean life helped me realize the vital importance of protecting our oceans.” The recent Deepwater Horizon oil blowout in the Gulf gave that beautiful image additional meaning, and the necessity of oil spill research and recovery became more personal. When Dr. Katz, who was now Cheng’s graduate advisor, became a co-Principal Investigator for the DROPPS oil spill research project, Cheng was happy to be part of his team.

His Work

Cheng aligns a laser at the Johns Hopkins Laboratory for Experimental Fluid Mechanics to form a uniform and collimated laser beam while conducting an in-line holography experiment. (Photo provided by Cheng Li)

Cheng’s research investigates how breaking waves dispel oil slicks with and without chemical dispersant. Sea surface oil slicks can contain harmful toxins and threaten coastlines. Breaking up surface oil into tiny droplets can reduce these hazards, as oil droplets submerge below the surface, keeping slicks away from shore and helping biodegradation. Chemical dispersants amplify this process by weakening the bonds that hold larger droplets together, and breaking ocean waves then separates the oil into smaller droplets and distributes them into the water column. Cheng’s research aims to better understand the physical mechanisms and effects of these processes.

Cheng designed and built a custom wave tank for his experiments that simulates the interactions of waves, oil, and dispersed oil. Made from transparent acrylic for full optical access, the tank measures 20 feet long, 2 feet high, and 1 foot wide and has a piston-type wave plate that can simulate any type of ocean wave, from rolling ripples to powerful plunging breakers. Cheng captures breaking wave actions using a high-speed camera and pushes the camera’s spatial resolution to the limit to observe the formation of small oil droplets. He then generates data based on the waves’ behavior at different time intervals and analyzes the entire process. This data will ultimately describe oil droplet size distribution with and without dispersant.

Cheng’s wave-tank experiments focus on the ocean’s uppermost layer, but he also participated in the DROPPS mesocosm experiment, which replicated the vertical marine environment using tall tanks filled with seawater and phytoplankton. Using lasers and high-speed imaging, researchers from various fields studied interactions of oil droplets rising from the ocean’s bottom with phytoplankton throughout the water column. They found that dispersant created an “octopus-like” body of oil with thin threads and tiny droplets trailing behind the oil, providing a larger surface for biodegrading microorganisms to attach.

While lab work can be challenging, Cheng knows that it will also be rewarding to watch his research enhance real-world oil spill models by forecasting oil paths and identifying the most effective dispersant application strategies. He and his colleagues are slowly uncovering new information about how droplets are physically generated and transported and how dispersant influences droplet size. “Our research intends to minimize the potential damage of future deep-water oil spill disasters,” says Cheng.

His Learning

Cheng explains that DROPPS research is progressive and exciting because it is “amazingly interdisciplinary, combining the valuable experience of expert biologists, chemists, and engineers.” By interacting with other scientists, Cheng constantly learns from and about other scientific fields, which he believes is crucially important to understanding the whole picture. He noted the mesocosm experiment as an example of exciting progress that can result from scientific collaboration. “All of those findings were made possible through interdisciplinary research,” he reflects. “The experiment showed me that interdisciplinary teams can gather far more insight than individual experts alone. It was incredibly rewarding to be a part of it.”

Being on the DROPPS research team is making Cheng’s dream of protecting our seas and oceans a reality. “Since theDeepwater Horizon oil spill, we have learned so much about how oil spreads and how we can safely contain and disperse it,” said Cheng. “I am so pleased that our research will help us more effectively prepare for and deal with oil spills.”

His Future

Cheng is entering the fifth year of his graduate studies and his third year of GoMRI research. In the next couple of years, Cheng will complete his Ph.D. research and pursue either a job in the petroleum industry or a post-doctoral position. Regardless, he is sure of one thing: he wants a career in engineering and environmental fluid mechanics that will build on his research with GoMRI and Johns Hopkins.

Praise for Cheng

Dr. Joseph Katz, a mechanical engineering professor and the Director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics, describes Cheng as a “bright, hard-working, and determined student.” Katz reports that Cheng’s research extends beyond a typical Ph.D. thesis and that his elaborate wave tank project exemplifies his “incredible ability to absorb substantial amounts of information from diverse fields and integrate it to produce something new and innovative.”

Katz explains that, as an advisor, delegating tasks and giving advice is easy. However, carrying out those tasks can often be very difficult. Cheng’s ability to handle the high-demand project made him a key element of their oil spill research. “He functioned very well under pressure. When I interact with him, there are two heads involved, not one. It’s not a dictation, it’s an interaction,” says Katz. “I believe this is the beginning of a very successful career as a researcher and scientist.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Cheng Li and their important contributions. TheGoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

Visit the DROPPS website to learn more about their work.

************

This research was made possible in part by a grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to theDispersion Research on Oil: Physics and Plankton Studies (DROPPS). The GoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Grad Student Saha Makes Strides Towards an Eco-Friendly Dispersant Alternative

Amitesh Saha displays his setup to study the underwater injection of dispersant on an oil plume. (Provided by Saha)

Amitesh Saha is on a mission to find safer alternatives to dispersants currently being used in oil spill cleanup. His research is showing promising results that nanoparticle materials could not only replace dispersants but may also help the marine environment’s response.

Amitesh is a Chemical Engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Rhode Island (URI) and is a GoMRI scholar with C-MEDS. He tells us about his research and its impacts on his science and personal experiences.

His Path

At the time of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Amitesh was completing his master’s degree at URI and researching the basic use of particles to stabilize emulsions. However, the oil spill helped him realize that this fundamental science could be the foundation for an important application: oil cleanup. The topic piqued his interest because he felt that it could contribute to developing greener dispersants and stabilizing crude oil in seawater for containment purposes.

Based on his initial research results, Amitesh discussed this new direction with his advisor, Dr. Arijit Bose, who was considering an oil spill research proposal with Dr. Vijay John (Tulane University). After exploring environmentally benign particles as potential alternatives or supplements to conventional dispersants, Amitesh found strong evidence that carbon black particles could be used in oil spill mitigation. He presented the results to Bose who used them as their proposal’s basis. Their research became part of the larger C-MEDS grant focused on improving traditional dispersants and developing new alternatives. Bose also incorporated Amitesh’s work into another successful GoMRI grant led by URI.

His Work

Amitesh Saha uses a Cryogenic Scanning Electron Microscope to investigate the distribution of particles on an oil drop surface in an emulsion. (Provided by Saha)

Amitesh explains that dispersants can help expedite “nature’s way of cleaning an oil spill” as surfactants break crude oil into stabilized tiny drops such that they are suspended in the water column and consumed by oil-degrading bacteria. However, some surfactants do not form very stable emulsions and can be toxic to the marine environment, so Amitesh examined nanoparticles, and specifically carbon black, as an alternative. These nanoparticles form a shell around an oil drop, creating a more stable emulsion and reducing the transfer of harmful polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) into water.

His results are showing the particles are not only environmentally benign, but also the shells they create also “provide a surface that supports the growth of hydrocarbon-eating bacteria,” Amitesh enthusiastically explains. He also found that nanoparticles are “compatible in both surface and subsea level applications.” His team is conducting experiments with carbon black particles that mimic different scenarios, such as in underwater injections and wave conditions.

A brightfield optical micrograph shows an emulsion of crude oil (O) in seawater (W) stabilized by carbon black particles. (Provided by Saha)

Amitesh says that the day he began working with crude oil samples from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead instead of substitutes laid the foundation for what he considers one of his greatest achievements so far. “For the first time, I was able to form a stable emulsion of crude oil in seawater using a very low concentration of carbon black particles.” These results proved the merit of carbon black for containing open-ocean oil spills. He happily reflects, “I remember clearly how excited Dr. Bose was when I told him about these results!”

Amitesh believes that the implications of his findings may significantly impact future oil spill responses, “We now know that carbon black particles can effectively emulsify oil in various conditions. This shows the potential of nonconventional materials as dispersants.” The GoMRI website featured asummary about their published research in Applied Materials & Interfaces and in Langmuir.

His Learning

Amitesh says that his work with C-MEDS has been a learning experience filled with new opportunities, such as using Cryogenic Scanning Electron Microscopy at Tulane University. For two weeks, the Tulane team trained him, and together they conducted experiments using the instrument to analyze how particles covered oil drops. Being able to visualize this process helped “catapult” him towards new research methods. Amitesh also saw the effects of using seawater rather than plain water in their experiments, “Salts in seawater helped our particles form stable emulsions, showing their ease of delivery in the event of an oil spill.” He brought this knowledge back to his team, set up their own Cryogenic Scanning Electron Microscopy, and incorporated it into their experiments.

Amitesh has learned a great deal about the scientific community through C-MEDS, “I have had the opportunity to collaborate with some of the smartest, most experienced people in my field.” Interacting with scientists in different fields also improved his research, “It’s really wonderful – it widens your horizon; you look at problems in a different light, giving you a better understanding of the problems you are trying to solve.”

His Future

Obtaining successful results in his first graduate project has led Amitesh to truly “fall in love” with his work. He has seen that particles have great application potential. With this framework set, he says that “it’s just a matter of time before we see many sides of using nanoparticles to solve problems.” Amitesh sees himself as a research scientist in industry or academia, using the experience and knowledge he has honed over the years to solve real-world problems. “I look forward to using my skills to the fullest!”

Praise for Amitesh

Dr. Bose speaks highly about Amitesh’s positive and enthusiastic personality and his skills as a scientist, “His can-do approach was critical towards demonstrating this new oil emulsification concept. He is highly creative, hardworking, and always ready to take on new challenges.” Bose added that Amitesh conducts his work with “grace and good humor, qualities that will really help him as he moves on to the next phase of his professional life.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Amitesh Saha and their important contributions. TheGoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

Visit the C-MEDS website to learn more about their work.

************

Grad Student Worthen Improves Oil Production and Cleanup Using Nanoparticles

Andrew samples an oil-in-seawater emulsion, stabilized with polymer-coated iron oxide nanoparticles. (Photo provided by Worthen)

Andrew Worthen’s research is “all about discovering how we can steward the planet more responsibly,” something he gets closer to every day. While Andrew’s initial nanoparticle research focused on creating more efficient and eco-friendly oil extraction methods, he is now applying his findings to oil spill treatment and mitigation.

Andrew is a chemical engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and a GoMRI scholar with C-MEDS. He shares how he became involved in his research, what it has taught him, and why it is so important.

His Path

Andrew credits his interest in chemical engineering to positive scientific experiences growing up, “I had the great fortune of many good science teachers, even in elementary school; they always kept my scientific interests alive.” As he got older, he felt drawn to chemical engineering, which he describes as the “perfect combination of my interest in chemistry and my math and physics skills. It’s a great marriage of those disciplines.”

A combination of Andrew’s scientific interests and good timing led him to working with C-MEDS. He first heard about the oil spill project, in its early stages, through his advisor, Dr. Keith Johnston. Intrigued by the proposed research, he volunteered to help Johnston move the project forward. Andrew found the work appealing because it combined fundamental science and the larger human goal of treating and mitigating oil spills, which he feels is “vital for the well-being of mankind.”

His Work

An oil-in-seawater emulsion stabilized with surfactant molecules and nanoparticles acting in synergy, depicted at three scales: a macro-scale view of an emulsion-filled test-tube (left), a microscope image of small spherical oil droplets (center), and a graphic of the nano-scale oil droplet configuration with a surfactant molecule and approaching nanoparticle (right). The surfactant molecules allow formation of smaller oil droplets, and the nanoparticles help stabilize the droplets. When surfactant molecules weakly interact with the nanoparticles, their synergy is strongest. (Provided by Worthen)

At first, Andrew investigated nanoparticles and nanotechnology as tools for drawing out more oil from reservoirs and improving existing surfactant-based dispersants. With C-MEDS, Andrew still handles those materials, but is designing less toxic, more efficient oil spill treatments. He explains, “We found that particles, as small as one-tenth to one-ten-thousandth of a grain of sand, can interact with dispersants and actually improve their performance.”

Andrew’s research often involves discovering new applications for existing knowledge, such as the way a nanoparticle absorbs on the surface of an oil droplet. He gives some background, “The surfaces of untreated oil droplets dispersed in clean water have a charge. Therefore, nanoparticles with the same charge will be repelled, like magnets.” While this concept was already known, Andrew had not yet considered that the charge was significant enough to affect his materials’ performance, “Suddenly, I realized that seawater is so salty that it would actually mitigate repulsion and make the materials work better!” Andrew redesigned the experiment using seawater and likely prevented the premature elimination of a potential solution.

Andrew’s work now encompasses both oil production and mitigation, “supporting both ends of the spectrum: retrieving oil from the ground quickly and safely, while preparing for and dealing with inevitable spills.” He is “in the camp that thinks petroleum production and usage isn’t going away any time soon, so we need figure out how to produce and use oil in a more efficient, green way.”

His Learning

Andrew has grown not only scientifically but also personally: “The thing that this project has taught me—the biggest impact on my learning overall—is how to be a leader.” Originally, it was a small project with just Dr. Johnston and Andrew; then, as the project grew to include undergraduate and graduate students and several post-doctoral researchers, Andrew found himself supervising an entire research team. “It was something I wasn’t expecting,” he explains. “I thought ‘This is a cool little project. No problem, I can take over some of this.’ But then, it suddenly became this very large project, and I ended up being its leader!”

Andrew’s leadership experience grew the most when teaching his fellow team members. Some researchers lacked a colloid background and needed training in that science and laboratory techniques. In his expanded role, Andrew learned to lead by example. “Teaching someone else really makes you know your stuff inside and out,” he says. “You have to know all the fundamentals and practicalities. You can’t just tell somebody ‘Hey, we’re going to do this project, you need to learn all the science.’ You need to be involved. That’s something I’ll remember forever.”

His Future

Andrew is currently transitioning from lab work to writing his dissertation, titled “Generation and Stabilization of Emulsions and Foams with Nanoparticles and Surfactants.” Although graduation is fast approaching, he recently published his work in the January 2014 issue of Langmuir and is finalizing several other journal articles. Additionally, he is preparing to present his GoMRI research at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers this fall. Andrew may pursue a postdoc position to broaden his education before deciding between a profession in academia or the oil industry.

Praise for Andrew

Dr. Johnston speaks highly of Andrew’s leadership, “Leading a research team is essential to multi-disciplinary science and GoMRI work. He did a lot to bring groups together and that ability is a great asset.” Andrew is working on several GoMRI projects with UT Austin scientists, including Thomas M. Truskett (Chairman of the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering and an expert in soft matter, interfacial phenomena, rheology, and statistical mechanics) and Ph.D. student Jon Bollinger. Johnston commended Andrew’s productive interactions with Vijay John (Tulane) for electron microscopy and Ramanan Krishnamoorti (University of Houston) for polymer science. “Both academia and industry value a multi-disciplinary approach,” he said, “and Andrew is gaining experience in polymer science, colloid science, and inorganic-organic materials chemistry in nanotechnology—all key to moving nanoparticle dispersant research forward.”Conducting research that has “important implications for nanotechnology and enhanced oil recovery in sub-surface reservoirs” and making gains in graduate research education and leadership, Andrew has “an extremely promising future career.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Andrew Worthen and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

Visit the C-MEDS website to learn more about their work.

************

Oil Patty Research with Top Scientists Turns Students into Citizen Science Enthusiasts

Catherine Carmichael, a research associate at WHOI, shows teacher Shawn Walker that taking detailed notes is essential when collecting data. (Photo by Danielle Groenen)

Talk about compounding interest! Put together scientists and teachers who are passionate about their work with students who are eager to help with ongoing research and watch as excitement fuels student engagement, sparks career interest, and feeds enthusiasm of all. And as a side bonus, research is conducted more efficiently in both time and cost. That’s a pretty good return on investment.

Some Florida high school students have been given an opportunity to engage in hands-on research that is as meaningful as it is fun thanks to a new initiative called Project Gulf Oil Observations (GOO). Members of the research consortium Deep Sea to Coast Connectivity in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (Deep-C) developed Project GOO which trains teachers and students to be effective citizen scientists and puts their new-found knowledge into use during visits to Gulf beaches in search of oil patties. Deep-C studies the long-term fate and effects of petroleum hydrocarbons in the Gulf.

Chris Reddy deconstructs the stereotypes associated with scientists. (Photo by Danielle Groenen)

“I cannot think of better vehicles to engage students than getting their hands dirty and learning how the world, in particular the ocean, works,” said Dr. Christopher Reddy, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) marine chemist and scientist with Deep-C.

In November 2013, Deep-C representatives Amelia Vaughan and Danielle Groenen accompanied Reddy and his research associate Catherine Carmichael to West Florida High School of Advanced Technology to work with Shawn Walker, a Marine Science teacher. The Deep-C group brought action-packed lesson plans that engaged and motivated students, which Walker very much appreciated: “Their hands-on lab activities, video presentations, relevant articles, and direct instructional approaches showed significant pre-planning and organizational skills. More important, was their genuine desire to make a positive and lasting impression on the students they are working with.” The next day, the team went into the field with Walker to train him in their methods.

Calling himself “very much an outsider to the Gulf,” Reddy was pleased to find Walker not only “talented and enthusiastic,” but also possessed of an extensive knowledge of the area’s geography and coastal processes, both invaluable to the project. Explaining the significance of Walker’s local knowledge base, Reddy said, “This will play a big role when we want to ‘tell a story’ on the oiled samples that Shawn and his students collect. Being able to say ‘there are more oiled-samples here because the tides/currents are stronger’ will provide a richer context to learning how spilled oil behaves.”

High school teacher Shawn Walker and Chris Reddy of WHOI are deep in discussion about sample analysis. (Photo by Danielle Groenen)

Walker also was very pleased, “Chris presented himself with humor to a classroom full of aspiring marine science students and, in a very informal and straightforward manner, he talked about what it takes to become a scientist, his successes and failures, and what motivated him along the way.” Walker described Chris and his presentation as a “home run” with the students because “he took off the ‘cloak of invisibility’ with his personal appearance. After all, how many research scientists have been in your classroom lately?”

In late February, Walker will take two of his classes to Gulf-front sites in the area to collect samples and mail them to the Reddy lab at WHOI for analysis. The Deep-C GOO coordinators are excited to be working with their first group of students. Over the next five months, these “GOOies” will receive on-site instruction and special training. The lesson plans and hands-on activities meet Florida’s educational standards and touch on general ocean science and oil spill research, oil degradation, how to think like a scientist, and the correct way to conduct scientific sampling.

The first phase of Project GOO was so successful that Deep-C plans to broaden it to include a school in Tallahassee at the end of March, adding Dr. Olivia Mason from Florida State University to the team for her expertise in oil analysis.

Teacher Shawn Walker and scientist Chris Reddy reflect on a hard day’s work at the beach! (Photo by Danielle Groenen)

Reddy, a specialist on following oil as it passes through the environment, has been making frequent trips to the Gulf Coast from Massachusetts to collect samples since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Even though the oil spill occurred more than three years ago, the process of gathering and analyzing information about the fate of the oil and dispersants will take years. The continuation of Project GOO will be a cost-effective way to get Reddy the data he needs and engage local young people in relevant, hands-on scientific work that affects them directly. Reddy summed up the citizen scientist initiative by saying, “Field work is fun, rewarding, and is an excellent teaching tool. Students and their parents need to know that you don’t need a degree in science to contribute.”

Engaging younger students is equally important to the project. At WHOI, Reddy works exclusively with graduate students. He called working with high school students “a real treat” and stressed the importance of getting young people “hooked” on science before they begin college and make choices that will affect their own life’s path and the future of scientific research as a whole.

Walker’s enthusiasm for this program is palatable: “In my opinion the highly respected, professional resources provided through contact with the Deep-C consortium make them one of the most sought after educational partners of the decade!”

Watch this video of students at West Florida High School as they learn to “Think Like a Scientist” as part of Project GOO:

This research was made possible in part by a grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to theDeepsea to Coast Connectivity in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (DEEP-C) consortium. The GoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Texas Students Put Oil Spill Cleanup Methods to the Test

Candace Peyton, project manager of DROPPS, assists middle school students with experiments to test effectiveness of dispersing as an oil cleanup method. (Photo by: J. Findley)

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 Science Field Program. The Marine Science Institute (UTMSI) in Port Aransas hosted the field program, focusing on the Gulf’s marine ecosystem.

UTMSI post-doctorate Rodrigo Almeda and graduate student Tracy Harvey led the oil-spill activities at the science field program. They are members of Dr. Edward Buskey’s laboratory team for the research consortium Dispersion Research on Oil: Physics and Plankton Studies (DROPPS). The DROPPS consortium is studying how oil breaks down into droplets, travels under various conditions, and interacts with the plankton in the marine environment.

Click for full story…

Class Project: Responses of Benthic Communities to Oil Exposure

Researchers prepare to deploy a multi-corer which will collect sediment samples from the sea floor. Photo: USM

Initially, much of the oil released from the Macondo well during the Deepwater Horizon disaster floated on the surface of the water. Over time, physical processes drove some of the oil onto beaches and into other shallow habitats of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Researchers from the University of Southern Mississippi are trying to determine where the rest of the oil went. They want to see if oil has also reached the sea floor at greater depths, and if so, where.

Classroom Activity: Deep-Sea Sediments
The ocean floor is made up of sediment including sand, silt and clay particles. The skeletons of tiny animals also contribute to deep-sea sediments. The particles take different amounts of time to reach the sea floor, depending on their density and size. Scientists study the layers of particles to create a historical record of the ocean floor. In this lesson, students will examine a core sample and conduct an experiment to see what factors influence settling rates.

Responses of Benthic Communities to Oil Exposure – PDF 1.1MB

Class Project: Mobile Bay Ship Channel – Tracking the Oil

Data collection points, used to track oil, along the Mobile Bay Ship Channel. Figure credit: DISL

During the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the potential for oil to be distributed into and around Mobile Bay was unknown. The movement and redistribution of dissolved or very small particles of oil-based substances remained a concern long after the well was capped. Consequently, NGI researchers at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab quickly began sampling the bay to document the presence of oil and to determine what forces affected oil movement in the bay.

Classroom Activity: Oceanography to Limnology
Scientists use a variety of techniques to gather information about aquatic habitats. Whether it be Mobile Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, a creek or pond, scientists use similar methods for analyzing the physical and chemical properties of a body of water. Monitoring water quality is important in determining the health of an ecosystem and for identifying potential problems such as pollution.

Mobile Bay Ship Channel_Tracking the Oil – 800KB

Class Project: Florida to Louisiana: Tracing the Oil

This map shows the radiocarbon content of sediments on the seafloor of the Gulf. The more bright colors represent less radiocarbon; indicative of oil input. You can clearly see the trace of the oil plume to the southwest of the spill site (marked with an x). Image credit: Jeff Chanton, FSU

The effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico are, for the most part, still unknown. Florida State University has developed an integrated study of the impact of oil on the coastal and ocean marine ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico, including the northern West Florida Shelf, extending from the Big Bend Region west to Louisiana. They are investigating the effects of the spill on coastal ecosystems with a particular emphasis on changes in the food webs that support major commercial and recreational fisheries in the Gulf and in locating oil on the seafloor.

Classroom Activity: You Are What You Eat
Students will investigate a food chain and explore how what an animal eats and where it lives leaves permanent chemical marks on them. The chemical marks can be analyzed by scientists and allow them to learn about the animals life history.

Florida to Louisiana_Tracing the Oil – PDF 1.2MB

Class Project: An Overview of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Satellite image of the Gulf of Mexico showing the spreading oil sheen May 24, 2010. (Photo/NASA)

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana. The resulting oil spill lasted 87 days and created the largest accidental release of oil the world had ever seen. While much of the northern Gulf of Mexico was spared, receiving little to no oil, other areas were heavily impacted. Several different methods were used to contain and clean up the oil, with varied success. Efforts to remove oil from the water and beaches are onging where necessary. Scientists continue to monitor coastal habitats to document and understand both the short- and long-term effects.

Classroom Activity: Still the Spill
Protecting the estuaries and coastal habitats of the northern Gulf of Mexico was of utmost importance during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A variety of materials were used to protect habitats and clean up the oil as it came ashore. Dispersants, chemicals that break down hydrocarbons, were used in some locations.

An Overview of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill – PDF 1.4MB

Class Project: Chemical Effects of the Oil Spill: Mississippi Sound

Researcers deploy a water sampling device to measure conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) at different points of the water column. Photo credit: Alan Shiller USM

Since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, scientists from a variety of backgrounds have been hard at work collecting samples to monitor the effects of the oil on marine environments. Dr. Alan Shiller, a chemical oceanographer from the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), has been studying both direct and indirect chemical effects from the spill. Direct effects include the spread of crude oil and the physical and chemical changes of the oil over time while indirect effects pertain to changes in natural ocean processes. This includes the prevention of exchange of oxygen at the surface of the water because of the presence of an oil slick. His observations provide other oil spill researchers with valuable information in seeking to understand ecosystem effects of the oil spill.

Classroom Activity: Oil-Munching Microbes
Oil, from natural seeps in the ocean floor, continuously flows into the environment. Some microbes, including bacteria, are specially adapted to survive exposure to hydrocarbons and are even able to use it as food. In this lesson, students will learn about natural oil seeps, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and how microbes are helping clean up our environment. An experiment may be added to this lesson so students can observe and evaluate the effectiveness of oil-eating microbes.

Chemical Effects of the Oil Spill Mississippi Sound – PDF 866KB

DROPPS Global Platform for Ocean Research: NOAA’s Science on a Sphere

All the world’s a stage – literally – as oceanic, atmospheric, and geologic conditions and events come to life on a “revolving” globe.

Visitors attend a Science on a Sphere presentation at the Bay Education Center

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 combined with science-based narratives to demonstrate the complex connectivity among Earth systems. The animated presentation of science in a world-wide context may grow public support for and inspire students to pursue interdisciplinary research that aims to improve response to future events.

With support from a Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GOMRI) award, the Dispersion Research on Oil: Physics and Plankton Studies (DROPPS) consortium led by Dr. Edward Buskey with the University of Texas Marine Science Institute (UTMSI) has partnered with the UTMSI Bay Education Center to incorporate up-to-date oil-spill and ocean research with the NOAA Science on a Sphere exhibit in order to reach a broad public audience.

K-12 educators learning about the teaching potential of Science on a Sphere

K-12 educators learn about the teaching potential of Science on a Sphere at a professional development workshop. (Photo by John Williams)

“Science on a Sphere can take this large, abstract phenomenon and make it accessible. The large format, global view really enables you to get a sense of the scale and movement of the Deepwater Horizon spill in a way that is much more intuitive than looking at a two-dimensional map or even a series of maps,” explains Dr. Deana Erdner a UTMSI Associate Professor and DROPPS outreach coordinator. “In addition, the Sphere is beautiful – it really draws people in, which means that we can get the information and the ideas out to far more people than we could with a static display.”

The DROPPS outreach team is in the initial development stage of preparing narratives using cutting-edge ocean surface currents and temperature science. As they more fully develop these narratives, they will pair them with NOAA and NASA datasets to create a powerful audio-visual teaching resource. The animation below is an example of how NOAA satellite data are used to show the daily movement of surface oil from the Deepwater Horizon incident from April 23 to August 2, 2010 and the locations affected.

(Above) Science on a Sphere Oil Spill Animation. Note: No audio. (Credit: NOAA)

DROPPS is pursuing collaboration with other GoMRI-funded consortia to incorporate new datasets into future Science on a Sphere presentations.

Last year, over 1,000 K-12 school children and 10,000 members of the general public attended UTMSI Science on a Sphere presentations. There are 82 exhibits around the world; 53 of them in the United States. All exhibits will have access to the science narratives that DROPPS is developing using the NOAA Deepwater Horizon dataset. This collaborative effort extends the availability of DROPPS outreach to a world-wide audience.

Children from Sea Camp attending a Science on a Sphere program

Children from Sea Camp attend a Science on a Sphere program at the Bay Education Center. (Photo by Carolyn Rose)

In addition to the exhibit presentations, the DROPPS outreach team incorporates oil-spill research in teacher workshops and when speaking to visiting K-12 groups. A middle school biology teacher who attended a presentation said, “The globe is awesome. I think students are really going to enjoy that. I’m looking forward to as many away-from-school and out-of-the-box learning situations that I can find.”

The DROPPS program includes six research institutions in five U.S. states and Norway. Scientists are investigating and modeling key processes involved with the dispersion of oil spills, interactions of oil with marine organisms and bacteria, and the environmental impact of these interactions. The experimental and numerical studies are performed at varying scales and levels of complexity, from bench-top studies to characterize specific phenomena to meso-scale experiments that are essential for mimicking realistic physical and biological conditions. The overall goals of these studies are to understand the fate of oil in the Gulf of Mexico; to provide data sets/predictive models to assess the environmental impact; and, via profiling of toxic compounds related to oil spills, to assess public health implications of oil spills in the Gulf.

This research is made possible by a grant from BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. The GoMRI is a 10-year, $500 million independent research program established by an agreement between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon incident and the potential associated impact of this and similar incidents on the environment and public health.