This undated handout image shows microbes (C) degrading oil (upper right) in the deepwater plume from the BP oil spill in the Gulf, a study by Berkeley Lab researchers has shown. -- Credit: Reuters/Hoi-Ying Holman Group/Handout
(Reuters) - A Manhattan-sized plume of oil spewed deep into the Gulf of Mexico by BP's broken Macondo well has been consumed by a newly discovered fast-eating species of microbes, scientists reported on Tuesday.The micro-organisms were apparently stimulated by the massive oil spill that began in April, and they degraded the hydrocarbons so efficiently that the plume is now undetectable, said Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.These so-called proteobacteria -- Hazen calls them "bugs" -- have adapted to the cold deep water where the big BP plume was observed and are able to biodegrade hydrocarbons much more quickly than expected, without significantly depleting oxygen as most known oil-depleting bacteria do.
Hydrocarbons in the light sweet Louisiana crude oil from the BP spill actually stimulated the new microbes' ability to degrade them in cold water, because these new "bugs" have adjusted over millions of years to seek out any petroleum they can find at the depths where they live, which coincides with the depth of the previously observed plume, roughly 3000 feet.