University of South Florida researchers reported a piece of good news today, saying they found no visible signs of oil in the sediments just off shore from the Panhandle beaches hit hard by the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.
Geologist Ping Wang led the team from the USF Coastal Research Laboratory.
These are the same researchers who found a thick layer of oil buried inches below the sand and tar balls all over beaches that had been cleaned by BP crews.
Two weeks ago, Wang, Susan Bell, the chair of USF's Department of Integrative Biology, and other researchers took sediment samples from off-shore areas stretching from Santa Rosa Island to Gulf Shores, Ala.
The work is part of National Science Foundation research into the effects of the oil that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon well from mid-April to mid-July.
Wang wrote in his report that "no visually identifiable oil contamination, including sunken tar balls, tar patties, or oil sheets, was observed at any of the sampling sites, despite the fact that most of the near shore sampling was conducted directly seaward from the heavily contaminated beaches."
The researchers said "it is unlikely that significant amounts of 'new oil from the nearshore' will be washed onto the beach during storms. However, it should be noted that based on our earlier study of buried oil along the beaches, erosion of buried beach oil and subsequent redistribution is expected during storms."
The researchers plan to do more tests to look for hydrocarbons, which often can be detected only through laboratory tests.
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