This is what the seafloor coated in oil looks like

[Robbien]

A researcher captured this image. A discarded flag (or one that has fallen from one of the many vessels in the area) rests on the ocean floor amid the oil and the bodies of dead crabs.



A two-inch layer of submerged oil is coating portions of the Gulf seafloor off the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge: a week after a smothering layer of floating crude washed ashore there. This scenario is being played out all along the Gulf shoreline.

Collecting in pockets and troughs in waist-deep water, the underwater oil is looser and stickier than the tarballs that cover the beach. The consistency is more like a thick liquid, albeit one made up of thousands of small globs. Unlike tarballs, which can often be picked up out of the water without staining the fingers, the submerged oil stains everything that it touches. If you passed your hand through the material it would emerge covered in oily smears.

There are a number of patches of submerged oil 40 to 100 feet off the beach, apparently collecting along rip currents and sandbars. The carcasses of sand fleas, speckled crabs, ghost crabs, and leopard crabs are spread throughout the oil, a thick layer of the material caking the bodies of the larger crabs - their claws looking as if they been turned into clubs made of oil.

http://www.alexkearns.com/2010/06/today-in-gulf.html

[csziggy]

1. What have we done...... n/t

[Robbien]

5. The blog this was taken from

talks more about how all the fish are gathered at shorelines and are acting funny probably due to being oxygen deprived. The researchers :

The Dauphin Island Sea Lab measured large areas of low oxygen water just off the beach at Fort Morgan last week, beginning in water around 20 feet deep. Monty Graham, a University of South Alabama scientist, theorized that the population of oil-consuming microbes had swelled. Sea life begins to die if oxygen levels drop below 2 parts per million. "We saw some very low oxygen levels, some below 1," said Graham, of testing he conducted aboard a Dauphin Island Sea Lab research vessel. He said that the layer of low-oxygen water closest to shore off Fort Morgan began at the bottom and rose up 30 feet.

A thirty feet deep huge block of low oxygen water! No wonder even the sharks are gathering at the shore.

[jgraz]

6. Nothing. It's what *they* have done.

Let's not confuse "them" with "us". "They" never do.

[Poboy]

11. Yes sir, keep it straight.

[Divine Discontent]

2. thanks WH for trusting Big Oil & still allowing them to roam free! sick...

[Swamp Rat]

3. Death to BP!

[suffragette]

4. A sad, sad sight

:cry:

[Gman]

7. I'll bet it's the dispersant causing this

that's the only thing that would change the characteristics of the oil.

[jberryhill]

10. Change what characteristics?

Maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that using the word "oil" instead of petroleum gives the wrong impression of the substance coming from the well.

[Gman]

24. If I understand it correctly, the dispersant makes the oil much less thick

and less inclined to create globs. It kind of "dilutes" it or thins it out. This would explain "the underwater oil is looser and stickier than the tarballs that cover the beach. The consistency is more like a thick liquid, albeit one made up of thousands of small globs. Unlike tarballs, which can often be picked up out of the water without staining the fingers, the submerged oil stains everything that it touches."

In other words, this oil seems to have been "dispersed".

[thereismore]

19. +1

[Beartracks]

8. Wow, I think THIS image...

... is way more iconic than the one of the oil-covered mallard someone noted in another thread a few weeks ago. While our hearts always go out to the fouled fowls, THIS image -- with the water, the dead sea life, the oil, and the sunken US flag -- speaks far more of this as a human failure and an American marine tragedy.

----------------------------

[Hissyspit]

22. That's why I called my post "Iconic:"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8596712

[chollybocker]

9. Very profound image.

[Go2Peace]

12. Also, those organisms that will "digest" some of the dispursed oil? They kill the oxygen

There is already a 30% drop in oxygen in areas around the plumes.

[w4rma]

13. This needs to be on TV. (nt)

[Delphinus]

14. Yep. n/t

[Vinca]

15. That's really an amazing photograph. It says more than any words could.

[cwydro]

16. k and r

[lunatica]

17. A once greatly nation befouls itself with it's own greed

Yeah, I know, it's BP, not an American company. But the greed is Red, White and Blue through and through.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

18. K/R with Fond Memories of Bon Secour

and all its wonderful little creatures


:cry:

[BrklynLiberal]

20. Tellling metaphor....the flag and all.....being drowned by the oil....

[Hissyspit]

21. LOL I posted it this weekend and had to go begging for recs:

It never got into the top ten of posts on the GP. I was a bit shocked. Serves me right for posting on a beautiful June weekend. :) http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8596712

Glad to see it is going somewhat viral. I tweeted it to Rachel and Keith and a few others.

I posted it to Facebook. as well. and would encourage everyone who is on Facebook to do the same. By the way, here's the original article link: http://blog.al.com/live/2010/06/lots_of_sharks_and_lots_of_oil.html

[Hissyspit]

23. Full-sized, high resolution version:

[Grinchie]

25. Buy BP! Kills Sand Fleas Dead!

Sorry, just had to attempt a little humor.

Forgive my droll sense of humor.