The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill significantly altered microbial communities thriving near shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico,potentially changing these diverse ecosystems and degrading the historically and culturally meaningful ships they live on, according to new research being presented here. The findings are also revealing how decades-outmoded, or even centuries-outmoded,shipwrecks could be used to monitor the health of deep-ocean ecosystems, and the effects of oil and gas activity in the Gulf, or according to the researchers.
Source: phys.org