A 3,200-square-kilometre (1,235-square-mile) “bathtub ring” of oil on the deep ocean floor is the latest unexpected result of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science on Monday showed that approximately 10 million gallons of oil settled and coagulated on the floor of the Gulf near the Deepwater Horizon rig, which spilled a total of 172 million gallons of oil into the ocean,” Atkin writes. “That oil left a footprint on the ocean floor about two times the size of the city of Houston, Texas, and approximately the size of the state of Rhode Island.”
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