In April of 2010, a BP Deepwater Oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, killing eleven workers and unleashing an unprecedented amount of sticky black crude into the gulf waters, beaches, wetlands, and surrounding ecosystems. Before we were able to successfully cap the ruptured deep water well, it flowed unchecked for 87 days at a rate of approximately 53,000 barrels per day, making it the nation’s worst offshore environmental catastrophe in history.
As with all failures, we have the opportunity to learn. Scientists, engineers, local communities, policy makers, industry leaders, and people far and wide are asking questions: How badly did the spill damage the gulf? How big was it? How did it happen? Were our solutions good or bad ideas? How has impacted wildlife? What can we do to fix the damage? And how can we keep it from happening again?
In this Natural Resources Defense Council time lapse video, NRDC science scribe Perrin Ireland paints some of the questions that scientists want to better understand about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill‘s impact, starting with this one: Where did the oil go?
Watch this next: Is this oil really flowing backwards? Plus all kinds of problem solving including one of our favorite videos: “I will be a hummingbird.”
via The Science Studio.
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