Oceanography
THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE OCEANOGRAPHY SOCIETY
VOL.29, NO.3, SEPTEMBER 2016
Special Issue on
GoMRI Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science
Oceanography | September 2016
96
SPECIAL ISSUE ON GoMRI:
DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL SPILL AND ECOSYSTEM SCIENCE
24
Foreword to the GoMRI Special Issue
By R.R. Colwell
26
Introduction to the Special Issue: An Overview of the Gulf of Mexico
Research Initiative
By J. Shepherd, D.S. Benoit, K.M. Halanych, M. Carron, R. Shaw, and C. Wilson
33
Enabling Data Sharing Through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative
Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC)
By J. Gibeaut
38
An Opportunity to Inform and Educate Through the Gulf of Mexico Research
Initiative: Outreach Efforts Surrounding the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
By D.S. Benoit, L.A. Zimmermann, K.H. Fillingham, S.H. Sempier,
N.M. Dannreuther, J.B. Ritchie, and K.M. Halanych
46
Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative: Engagement with Public Health,
Risk Perception, and Risk Mitigation
By B. Singer and S.H. Sempier
50
Chemical Composition of Macondo and Other Crude Oils and Compositional
Alterations During Oil Spills
By E.B. Overton, T.L. Wade, J.R. Radović, B.M. Meyer, M.S. Miles, and S.R. Larter
64
How Do Oil, Gas, and Water Interact Near a Subsea Blowout?
By S.A. Socolofsky, E.E. Adams, C.B. Paris, and D. Yang
76
Methods of Oil Detection in Response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
By H.K. White, R.N. Conmy, I.R. MacDonald, and C.M. Reddy
88
What Happened to All of the Oil?
By U. Passow and R.D. Hetland
96
Over What Area Did the Oil and Gas Spread During the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon Oil Spill?
By T.M. Özgökmen, E.P. Chassignet, C.N. Dawson, D. Dukhovskoy, G. Jacobs,
J. Ledwell, O. Garcia-Pineda, I.R. MacDonald, S.L. Morey, M.J. Olascoaga,
A.C. Poje, M. Reed, and J. Skancke
108 The Role of Dispersants in Oil Spill Remediation: Fundamental Concepts,
Rationale for Use, Fate, and Transport Issues
By V. John, C. Arnosti, J. Field, E. Kujawinski, and A. McCormick
118
Marine Snow Sedimented Oil Released During the Deepwater Horizon Spill
By U. Passow and K. Ziervogel
contents
VO L . 2 9, N O. 3, SE P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6
38
50
Oceanography | September 2016
Oceanography | Vol.29, No.3
Barataria
Bay
Terrebonne-
Timbalier Bay
ON THE COVER
CENTER. Deepwater Horizon oil rig prior to the April 2010 accident. Source: National Commission of the BP Deepwater Horizon
Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT. (1) Photo showing oil (brown blobs) inside a copepod nauplius of Parvocalanus crassirostris. Photo
credit: Rodrigo Almeda (2) Jonathan Delgardio and Will Overholt (Georgia Institute of Technology) collect samples from a Pensacola
Beach sand trench with oil layers. Photo credit: Markus Huettel (3) A chromatogram of oil that leaked from the Macondo well during
the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Each peak represents one of thousands of individual chemical compounds in the oil. Image courtesy
of Bob Nelson, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (4) Splash resulting from impact of a raindrop on a 400 µm oil slick. Image
credit: David W. Murphy, Johns Hopkins University (5) Fishers offload yellowedge grouper from a fishing vessel near Tampa, Florida.
Photo credit: Steve Saul (6) Ocean color satellite imagery and high-resolution circulation models were used to delineate possible
phytoplankton blooms. Fieldwork is needed to confirm these phenomena. Image credit: Ocean Weather Laboratory (7) Researchers
found sea pansies and lined sea stars when trawling offshore of the Chandeleur Islands. This spring 2015 survey is helping to
document mid- and higher-level consumer diversity and abundance across the northern Gulf of Mexico. Photo courtesy of the
Alabama Center for Ecological Resilience (8) Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment
drifter trajectories in the Gulf of Mexico superimposed on Aviso surface currents. Image credit: Edward Ryan and Tamay Özgökmen,
University of Miami (9) Coastal Waters Consortium (CWC) researchers mark study sites in a marsh. Photo credit: CWC Consortium
CONTACT US
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SPECIAL ISSUE SPONSOR
Production of this issue of Oceanography
was supported by the Gulf of Mexico
Research Initiative.
SPECIAL ISSUE GUEST EDITORS
• DEBRA S. BENOIT
Nicholls State University
• KENNETH M. HALANYCH
Auburn University
• JOHN SHEPHERD
University of Southampton
• RICHARD SHAW
Louisiana State University
• CHUCK WILSON
Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative
126 Weathering of Oil Spilled in the Marine Environment
By M.A. Tarr, P. Zito, E.B. Overton, G.M. Olson, P.L. Adhikari, and C.M. Reddy
136 Responses of Microbial Communities to Hydrocarbon Exposures
By S.B. Joye, S. Kleindienst, J.A. Gilbert, K.M. Handley, P. Weisenhorn,
W.A. Overholt, and J.E. Kostka
150 Effects of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Coastal Marshes and
Associated Organisms
By N.N. Rabalais and R.E. Turner
160 How Did the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Affect Coastal and Continental Shelf
Ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico?
By S.A. Murawski, J.W. Fleeger, W.F. Patterson III, C. Hu, K. Daly, I. Romero,
and G.A. Toro-Farmer
174 Impact of Oil Spills on Marine Life in the Gulf of Mexico: Effects on Plankton,
Nekton, and Deep-Sea Benthos
By E.J. Buskey, H.K. White, and A.J. Esbaugh
182 How Did the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Impact Deep-Sea Ecosystems?
By C.R. Fisher, P.A. Montagna, and T.T. Sutton
196 Seafood and Beach Safety in the Aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
By R. Dickey and M. Huettel
204 Synthesis and Crosscutting Topics of the GoMRI Special Issue
By J.W. Farrington, K.A. Burns, and M.S. Leinen
Oceanography | Vol.29, No.3
150
182
Oceanography | September 2016
Editor
Ellen S. Kappel
Geosciences Professional Services Inc.
5610 Gloster Road
Bethesda, MD 20816 USA
t: (1) 301-229-2709
ekappel@geo-prose.com
Contributing Writer
Cheryl Lyn Dybas
cheryl.lyn.dybas@gmail.com
Oceanography
W W W.TO S .O R G /O C E A N O G R A P H Y
Oceanography (ISSN 1042-8275) is published by The Oceanography Society, PO Box 1931,
Rockville, MD, 20849-1931 USA. ©2016 The Oceanography Society Inc. All rights
reserved. Permission is granted for individuals to copy articles from this magazine for
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Republication, systemic reproduction, or collective redistribution of any material in
Oceanography is permitted only with the approval of The Oceanography Society.
Please contact Jennifer Ramarui at info@tos.org.
Gregg J. Brunskill
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Alligator Creek, Queensland 4816
Australia
g.brunskill@hotmail.com
Margaret L. (Peggy) Delaney
Professor of Ocean Sciences
Ocean Sciences Department
University of California, Santa Cruz
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA
t: (1) 831-459-4736
f: (1) 831-459-4882
delaney@ucsc.edu
Charles H. Greene
Director
Ocean Resources & Ecosystems
Program
Department of Earth & Atmospheric
Sciences
Cornell University
2130 Snee Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-2701 USA
t: (1) 607-255-5449
f: (1) 607-254-4780
chg2@cornell.edu
Kiyoshi Suyehiro
Principal Scientist
Laboratory of Ocean-Earth Life
Evolution Research
JAMSTEC
Tokyo, Japan
t: (81) 45-778-5800
suyehiro@jamstec.go.jp
James Syvitski
Executive Director of CSDMS
INSTAAR
University of Colorado-Boulder
1560 30th Street, Campus Box 450
Boulder, CO 80309-0450 USA
t: (1) 303-492-7909
f: (1) 303-492-3287
james.syvitski@colorado.edu
Peter Wadhams
Department of Applied Mathematics
and Theoretical Physics
University of Cambridge
Centre for Mathematical Sciences
Wilberforce Road
Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK
t: (44) 1223-760372
p.wadhams@damtp.cam.ac.uk
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Associate Editors
THE
OCEANOGRAPHY
SOCIETY
P.O. Box 1931
Rockville, MD 20849-1931 USA
t: (1) 301-251-7708; f: (1) 301-251-7709
www.tos.org
The Oceanography Society was founded in 1988
to disseminate knowledge of oceanography and
its application through research and education, to
promote communication among oceanographers,
and to provide a constituency for consensus-
building across all the disciplines of the field.
OFFICERS
Susan Lozier, President
Alan Mix, President-Elect
Mark Abbott, Past-President
Susan Cook, Secretary
Susan Banahan, Treasurer
COUNCILLORS
William Balch
Stefanie Mack
Kristen Buck
Dennis McGillicuddy
Lee Karp-Boss
Richard Murray
John Largier
Julie Pullen
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Jennifer Ramarui
SPONSORS
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www.sea-birdscientific.com
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Oceanography | September 2016
Oceanography | Vol.29, No.3
Breaking Waves
CALL FOR
MANUSCRIPTS
Breaking Waves provides an outlet for short papers describ-
ing novel approaches to multidisciplinary problems in ocean-
ography. These provocative papers will present findings that are
synthetic by design, and have the potential to move the field of
oceanography forward or in new directions.
Papers should be written in a style that is both concise and
accessible to a broad readership. While these papers should be
thought-provoking for the professional oceanographer, they
should also be written in a manner that is engaging for the edu-
cated nonprofessional. As in other sections of Oceanography,
we encourage the use of color photographs and figures to help
illustrate a paper’s main points and add to its aesthetic appeal.
Consistent with our effort to publish papers on rapidly advanc-
ing topics in oceanography, all submissions to the Breaking Waves
section will be given a special fast-track in the peer-review and
publishing processes. Our goal will be to publish papers no more
than two issues (i.e., six months) after their submission.
The Associate Editor overseeing Breaking Waves manuscripts
is Charles H. Greene (chg2@cornell.edu), Department of Earth
and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University. Authors should
submit a brief e-mail message to the Associate Editor outlining
their ideas for papers prior to actual manuscript preparation. This
step will ensure that authors receive appropriate feedback prior
to investing their time and energy in preparing manuscripts that
may be unsuitable for publication in this forum. Correspondence
with the Associate Editor and submission of manuscripts must
be done electronically. File formats for text, figures, and photo-
graphs must be consistent with existing style guidelines
for Oceanography (http://tos.org/oceanography/guidelines).
14
DEPARTMENTS
05
QUARTERDECK. Silver Linings: Disasters Can Produce Good Science
By E.S. Kappel
07
FROM THE PRESIDENT. TOS To Pilot a Mentoring Program for Ocean Science
Graduate Students
By M.S. Lozier
09
COMMENTARY. True Colors of Oceanography: Guidelines for Effective and
Accurate Colormap Selection
By K.M. Thyng, C.A. Greene, R.D. Hetland, H.M. Zimmerle, and S.F. DiMarco
14
COMMENTARY. North America’s Iconic Marine Species at Risk Due To
Unprecedented Ocean Warming
By C.H. Greene
18
COMMENTARY. Assessing Student Learning of Oceanography Concepts
By L. Arthurs
22
RIPPLE MARKS. Coral Reef Discovered in an Unlikely Locale:
The Amazon River’s Freshwater Plume
By C.L. Dybas
214 ROGER REVELLE COMMEMORATIVE LECTURE. Managing Leviathan:
Conservation Challenges for the Great Whales in a Post-Whaling World
By P.J. Clapham
226 THE OCEANOGRAPHY CLASSROOM. Why Wet Students Are the Best:
The Ins and Outs of Fieldwork
By S. Boxall
229 CAREER PROFILES. Louise Newman, Executive Officer, Southern
Ocean Observing System • Jonathan M. Lilly, Senior Research Scientist,
NorthWest Research Associates
Oceanography | Vol.29, No.3
214
Oceanography | September 2016
Silver Linings
Disasters Can Produce Good Science
On April 20, 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, working
on the Macondo exploration well for BP in the Gulf of Mexico, killed 11 peo-
ple and led to an estimated five million barrels of crude oil spewing into the
water column from approximately 1,500 m depth. Four months later and six
years ago this month, on September 19, 2010, the wellhead was declared per-
manently sealed. The scope and scale of the environmental disaster caused by
the blowout was enormous. And yet, as with great tragedies throughout his-
tory, ranging from fires that destroyed large portions of London and Chicago
to earthquakes that devastated Lisbon and San Francisco, great disasters
often have a silver lining. In this case, work done in reaction to the massive
Deepwater Horizon oil spill led to a substantial amount of good science that
will improve the response to the inevitable next major spill. Numerous field
programs, experiments, and modeling studies conducted in the aftermath of
Deepwater Horizon by scientists from institutions in the United States and
around the world added tremendously to the knowledge base. Hundreds of
peer-reviewed articles have already been published on the Deepwater Horizon
spill, including several special issues in specialized journals.
This special issue of Oceanography, generously supported by the Gulf of
Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI), supplements this literature by provid-
ing an accessible, multidisciplinary overview not only of results from scien-
tific studies but also of the multifaceted outreach and database efforts sup-
ported under the GoMRI program. Twenty articles provide snapshots of how
far oil spill science has come in the six years since the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill. Their topics range from how crude oil weathers and spreads, to the envi-
ronmental impacts of dispersant use, the short- and long-term effects oil spills
have on coastal and marine ecosystems, and impacts on the health and live-
lihoods of the affected communities. Even with this silver lining, as articles
in this special issue remind us, the story is not yet complete. The outcomes of
studies that will be supported by GoMRI’s final request for proposals, to be
issued in October, will contribute further to the important knowledge base on
how oil spills affect Earth’s environment.
QUARTERDECK
Ellen S. Kappel, Editor
December 2016
Ocean-Ice Interaction
March 2017
International Cooperation in
Harmful Algal Bloom Science
June 2017
Autonomous and Lagrangian
Platforms and Sensors
September 2017
Sedimentary Processes Building a
Tropical Delta Yesterday, Today, and
Tomorrow: The Mekong System
December 2017
Celebrating 30 Years of Ocean Science
and Technology at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute
In addition to the special issues articles,
Oceanography solicits and publishes:
• Peer-reviewed articles that chronicle
all aspects of ocean science and its
applications
• News and information, meeting reports,
hands-on laboratory exercises, career
profiles, and book reviews
• Editor-reviewed articles that address
public policy and education and how
they are affected by science and
technology
• Breaking Waves articles that describe
novel approaches to multidisciplinary
problems in ocean science
Special Issues
Oceanography
Upcoming
http://www.tos.org/
oceanography
Oceanography | Vol.29, No.3
Call for Nominations for 2016
http://tos.org/awardshonors
The Oceanography Society (TOS) Fellows Program was established to recognize indi-
viduals who have attained eminence in oceanography through their outstanding con-
tributions to the field of oceanography or its applications over a substantial number
of years. TOS members are encouraged to participate in honoring such individuals by
nominating or seconding their election as a TOS Fellow. TOS members from all areas
of oceanography will be considered for the Fellows Program. A recommendation for
advancement to TOS Fellow is appropriate after an individual has been a TOS member
for at least three years, depending on his or her contributions to the field.
The main criteria for being elected a TOS Fellow are outstanding and sustained con-
tributions, and devotion to the broad field of oceanography, commensurate with the
founding principles of the Society.
To be considered this year, the Nominator, who must be a TOS member, should submit a
nomination package by October 31, 2016. Important details and instructions regard-
ing the nomination process are provided at http://tos.org/awardshonors. This infor-
mation is also available upon request from the TOS Executive Director (info@tos.org).
The Oceanography Society Fellows Program
The Oceanography Society | P.O. Box 1931, Rockville, MD 20849-1931, USA | Telephone: 301/251-7708 | Fax: 301/251-7709 | E-mail: info@tos.org
Recognizing Individuals Who Have Attained Eminence in Oceanography
Through Their Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Oceanography or Its Applications
Oceanography | September 2016
After taking a break for the beach and a fair share of summer
reads, it is time to get ready for another semester. My immedi-
ate focus is on preparation for my fall undergraduate course, but
graduate education is never far from my mind these days. It has
been a focus of TOS Council meetings for the past year, and I
have been involved for some time in efforts to reimagine gradu-
ate education in the sciences here at Duke. In previous columns,
I discussed the motivation for this reimagining, namely, the cur-
rent job market for PhDs in science. Nationwide, only about
10% of PhD students in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM) fields go on to academic careers, a sober-
ing statistic given that most graduate student training empha-
sizes such careers. In this column, I turn to thoughts on how
changes in graduate education might be approached.
A main challenge to reconfiguration of graduate education
is its financial model. Financial support for graduate students
is inextricably linked to faculty research programs and, in most
major research universities, to undergraduate education, the lat-
ter via teaching assistantships. Thus, a comprehensive revision
of graduate education cannot be seriously approached with-
out understanding the constraints placed by these ties. If every
student who entered graduate school paid his or her own way
(undesirable and unlikely) or received a fellowship (desirable,
yet unlikely), a vision for graduate education would focus solely
on providing graduate students with the knowledge and skills
required for the pursuit of career options that included, but were
not limited to, academia. Instead, the current funding model
for graduate education constrains the degree to which students
can pursue independent projects; work in collaborative teams;
and acquire communication, entrepreneurial, and leadership
skills—all desirable experiences for graduates looking for work
in a wide array of professional careers.
And so, as I have written before, the ocean science commu-
nity, in conjunction with the federal agencies that support ocean
research, should consider a “sea change” in how graduate educa-
tion is funded. Possible changes include shifting resources from
research assistantships toward fellowships; funding master’s
education; and “rightsizing” the balance among graduate stu-
dent, postdoctoral, and early career support. These are not easy
changes, but then, it is not easy to see graduate students with
dampened expectations of academic careers.
Funding changes alone will not make the fix. Universities must
also evaluate graduate education in the sciences in light of these
statistics. Even without structural changes in graduate student
funding, universities can expand career opportunities for their
graduates by (1) developing joint-degree programs, (2) provid-
ing courses and/or workshops that focus on the knowledge and
skills needed for nonacademic employment, (3) permitting col-
laborative research projects, and (4) requiring rigorous training
in oral and written communication, with an emphasis on pub-
lic scholarship. Admittedly, these changes require a cultural shift
in graduate education, yet the shift in job statistics lays bare our
responsibility to make these changes.
All of this brings me back to TOS. It’s easy to call out the
funding agencies and universities as the change makers. But,
aside from prodding universities and funding agencies to act,
what role can our society play in effecting change? Following
the TOS Town Hall on graduate education at the 2016 Ocean
Sciences meeting in New Orleans, the TOS Council discussed
just this question. And our answer is two-pronged. First, the
Council would like to expand TOS’s membership to include
a larger number of nonacademic oceanographers. Instead of
mainly being an academic oceanographic society, we would like
to be an academic and professional oceanographic society that
includes much broader membership from industry, nonprofits,
and government agencies. This expansion would make possi-
ble the second prong of our response to the changing job mar-
ket, formation of a mentoring program where current graduate
students are mentored by senior oceanographers with a variety
of careers, inside and outside of academia. In essence, we think
The Oceanography Society can and should create networks
that would expand and facilitate graduate student career path-
ways. We cannot do much about funding models or curricular
changes, but, as a society, we can connect people.
And we have model for this effort. Since 2008, MPOWIR
(Mentoring Women in Physical Oceanography to Improve
Retention),
a
community-initiated
and
community-led
mentoring program funded by the US National Science
Foundation, Office of Naval Research, National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, and Department of Energy has focused
on improving the retention of women in physical oceanography
through mentoring. The MPOWIR program has several
TOS To Pilot a Mentoring Program
for Ocean Science Graduate Students
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Oceanography | Vol.29, No.3
elements, but one of the most successful has been MPOWIR
mentoring groups, which are composed of five to seven stu-
dents, postdocs, or early career scientists and two senior ocean-
ographers as lead members. The groups meet monthly for about
an hour via teleconference for the purpose of providing confi-
dential mentoring, including peer mentoring, for the junior
group members. Each group has an expected lifetime of approx-
imately two years. Survey results from group participants reveal
high satisfaction with this mentoring element, and early indica-
tions are that MPOWIR is moving the needle on retention.
The TOS Council plans to explore whether the MPOWIR
model can serve our goal of exposing current graduate stu-
dents, men and women alike, to different career paths. The idea
is to form mentoring groups of students across the country and
pair them with two senior oceanographers, each with a differ-
ent career. While we think that students in these groups will
learn more about oceanography careers, we expect the biggest
advantage to be that a student will learn how his or her own skills
and interests are suited to a particular career. As with MPOWIR,
it is easy to see how a senior oceanographer obtained his or her
job, but it is more difficult to see how to get there yourself. This
is where mentoring comes in.
So, we want to give it a try. We will advertise the start of two
pilot mentoring groups this fall and launch the groups in January
of 2017. It’s a small start, but nonetheless a step in the right direc-
tion. Basically, it is an opportunity for this society of professional
oceanographers (of all stripes) to take responsibility for the next
generation of oceanographers. Or, more colloquially, it gives us
a chance to show them the ropes.
M. Susan Lozier, TOS President
Call for Contributions to the New Web Portal
RESOURCES FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS
http://tos.org/opportunities
The Oceanography Society has created a new Web page to serve as a resource for ocean sciences graduate
students. This portal contains information on fellowships, scholarships, summer positions, volunteer
opportunities, links to useful articles, and ship time/fieldwork opportunities.
Do you have suggestions or contributions for this page?
Please contact us at magazine@tos.org.
Oceanography | Vol.29, No.3