Impact of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Coral Is Deeper and Broader than Predicted (IMAGE)
Caption
A new discovery of two additional coral communities showing signs of damage from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill expands the impact footprint of the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The discovery was made by a team led by Charles Fisher, professor of biology at Penn State University. A paper describing this work and additional impacts of human activity on corals in the Gulf of Mexico will be published during the last week of July 2014 in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Two colonies of coral from a newly discovered coral community with attached anemones and brittle stars from a site 6 km from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site. The patchy brown growth on the normally gold-colored coral is not found on healthy colonies and is diagnostic for corals impacted during the spill.
Credit
Fisher lab, Penn State University
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