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Where has all the oil gone?

Waves partially obscure rigs drilling relief wells at the oil spill site in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday.  (Associated Press)
Waves partially obscure rigs drilling relief wells at the oil spill site in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday. (Associated Press)

Waves partially obscure rigs drilling relief wells at the oil spill site in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday.

Where is all the oil? Nearly two weeks after BP finally capped the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared. Nor has much oil washed up on the sandy beaches and marshes along the Louisiana coast. And the small cleanup army in the Gulf has only managed to skim up a tiny fraction of the millions of gallons of oil spilled in the 100 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig went up in flames.

So where did the oil go? "Some of the oil evaporates," explains Edward Bouwer, professor of environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University. That’s especially true for the more toxic components of oil, which tend to be very volatile, he says. John Carey, Yahoo News Read more.

Related story.

So, just how big of a disaster is this, really?



Huckleberries Online

D.F. Oliveria started Huckleberries Online on Feb. 16, 2004. Oliveria's Sunday print Huckleberries is a past winner of the national Herb Caen Memorial Column contest.