Deepwater Horizon Disaster Half a Decade Later: Biodegradation of the Oil Spill

Researchers from UC Santa Barbara and a team from 3 other institutions have analyzed data from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment that identifies the specific rates of biodegradation for 125 major petroleum hydrocarbons or compounds from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that settled on the ocean floor. In their study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers noted the factors that would influence the environmental impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.