The Thrill of Scientific Victory in the Middle of a Defeated Gulf

Marshalling the resources for scientific studies of an event like the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which blew up on April 20, 2010, is usually daunting and time consuming. A credible effort requires, at a minimum, expert personpower, equipment, supplies, and buckets of money. But the unprecedented draw of such a unique opportunity got a fast response from the of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Lab. By the end of April, the University assembled a team drawn from experts across its many departments involved in ocean, marine life, and geophysical studies, got funding from NOAA, and put the Research Vessel Pelican on the water to take sediment samples and begin measuring the movement and physical state of the released oil. Dr. Vernon Asper, a professor in the Department of Marine Science at USM and trained marine geology at the University of Hawaii and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, became the voyage’s designated blogger.

That cruise lasted 10 days, and Dr. Asper returned to sea on a second week-long trip at the end of May on the R/V Tommy Munro sponsored by NSF and included a consortium of scientists, notably Dr. Samantha Joye (arguably, the most well-known of those scientists blogging about the oil spill; see http://gulfblog.uga.edu/). Dr. Asper’s observations of the scene at this “Ground Zero,” descriptions of the work, and comments on the results make for a great read. He provides readable if somewhat technical descriptions of the equipment used and the sampling strategies, along with capturing a bit of the flavor of the voyage itself and the people involved. Embedded along with the blog text are great pictures, a video, and a series of audio blog posts from his colleague, Dr. Jim Franks, a researcher in the Department of Fisheries Research and Development.

But what really makes this blog stand out is its sense of gee-whiz excitement about the thrills of being in the middle of real-time scientific discoveries. Many of the samples and data collected will be analyzed back on dry land for years. But in the blog, Dr. Asper’s informal but engaging writing poses the scientific questions being asked right now, captures first reactions to the data, spits out hypotheses, and tosses around options to test the hypotheses. Ultimately, he describes not one but two Eureka moments (“One of the best days in my science career ever”), realizing that their early ideas about the oil forming deep underwater plumes, and the nature of the aggregates that form the plumes, are the right interpretations and real discoveries (which BP dismissed, until public release of some data forced them to concede the points). Along the line, he also enjoys interviews with Katie Couric, a Good Morning America team, and New York Times reporters. The only down side is that the blog does not have options for comments or display of hits received, so it’s not possible to gauge the level of interest it has received. And the entries end on June 1, with the return of the R/V Tommy Munro to port, with no further updates as of June 25. It’s well worth looking for future installments. Check it out at http://www.usm.edu/oilspill/blogs.php.