current events 4

Gulf oil finds many paths
www.sciencenewsforkids.com
Stephen Ornes
September 8 2010

Even though the hole at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is plugged, the environmental disaster isn’t over. The oil in the water is still there. Scientists have tried to find an effective way to remove it, this may seem easy but it is actually a very difficult process.
As you may know the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform sank on the 22 of April and released an enormous amount of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, fish birds and other animals are soaked in oil and are struggling for survival.
Engineers plugged the hole at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, The same one that the deepwater horizon had drilled. That was a very hard task the hole was nearly a mile bellow the water surface and plugging it required an very heavy cap, engineers calculated that 75 tons is enough to plug the hole. 75 tons is the equivalent to six large school buses.
From April 20 until June 15 4.9 million barrels of oil escaped. 4.9 million barrels is enough to fill 300 Olympic sized swimming pools. The worst thing is that this is the worst spill in U.S history. Even though much of the oil has floated to the surface there is still a significant amount below the surface. Scientists are starting to question why there is still oil below the surface.