Swiftia exserta (a. healthy, b. wounded) and Hypnogorgia pendula (c. healthy, d. wounded) in the Gulf of Mexico, an area affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
ETNOYER ET AL., CORAL REEFS, 35:77-90, 2016
Certain deepwater corals in the Gulf of Mexico have deteriorated since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Recently, NOAA’s RESTORE Act Science Program has awarded scientists $1.3 million to study “processes that shape population connectivity patterns in habitat-forming deepwater corals . . . including species directly impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” according to a news release.
"Such data could inform decisions about which areas are the most important to protect for the regeneration of damaged corals and the ultimate restoration of the Gulf," says grant recipient and biological oceanographer Santiago Herrera of Lehigh University.
See P.J. Etnoyer ...
