Oil Spill Continues To Wash Ashore In Gulf, BP Deep-Cleaning Beaches In Response

Individual spill rates of 'seeps' are much lower than the G U S H I N G  from the Deepwater Horizon blowout.  As well, these much smaller 'seeps' are dispersed around the Gulf, so that the amount of oil released from each 'seep' degrades quickly.

With BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout, the oil all  G U S H E D  out at the same time, in the same place.  "Natural" 'seeps' occur spaced out, a bit at a time, over a wide geography -- The oceans can degrade small amounts of oil 'seeps' within 5 days, continually.  Water in one location can only degrade so much oil at a time; the Deepwater Horizon blowout  overwhelmed the ocean's natural oil-coping mechanisms.


Strong oil seeps can lead to increased microbial productivity (as those bacteria break down more abundant oil) and result in some local hypoxia (lack of oxygen) on the ocean floor, but not to the point of causing large dead zones.  Further, individual seeps are not always active and the release rate can even vary considerably during a single day and from day to day.  As a result, only a small area around a seep is ever actually exposed to "fresh," un-degraded oil, and that is when it is most toxic.

What we know as "oil" is actually a varying combination of thousands of different compounds.  Many of these react differently and have different fates when released into the water: some molecules evaporate, others degrade in sunlight ("photolysis"), some dissolve in seawater, some get eaten by microbes, and others sink and end up in sediments.  That is, if they don't wash up on a beach or become entrained in the biosphere first.

The BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is an ELE (Extinction Level Event).

We were already driving the Sixth Great Extinction before the BP blowout in the Gulf -- We are a very careless species.
About Gulf Oil Spill
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