The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the Gulf Spill, of 2010 is considered to be the largest recorded marine oil spill the world has ever seen. With an estimated total spillage of 210 million US gallons of crude oil, the 87-day ordeal is also regarded as the most devastating environmental disaster in American history.
While the Gulf of Mexico was obviously, and drastically, affected immediately after the oil spill, a recent report in Atlas Obscura suggests that an even more nightmarish turn of events is occurring on the sea floor, some 6,000 feet below the surface.
Clifton C. Nunnally, a deep-sea biologist at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, was conducting research at the site of the incident when he and his team made a startling discovery. While scouring the ocean floor using a remotely operated vehicle, the researchers saw just how devastating the nearly decade-old oil spill was on deep sea-dwelling creatures, such as crabs and shrimp.
"Nothing prepared us for what we saw," says Nunnally. "One of the very first things that we saw was a solitary boot," he says. "That made us realize what we're looking at here." The oil spill was the result of an explosion at the drill rig that killed 11 people.
Four months after the devastation, in August of 2010, researchers compared seeing the site to "visiting a graveyard", stating that nearly everything on the ocean floor had been wiped out. Four years later, the only life to be found in the wasteland was arthropods-invertebrate animals such as insects, arachnids, and crustaceans.
In Nunnally's research-conducted in 2017-he writes how the site was now simply overrun with crabs. Although, there were no signs of any other life, such as giant isopods, glass sponges, or whip corals, crustaceans seemed to be drawn to the spill site. It was reported that more deep-sea red crabs, red shrimp, and white caridean shrimp were seen on-site, than in surrounding areas that were significantly less contaminated.
"Everywhere there were crabs just kicking up black plumes of mud, laden with oil," Nunnally says.
But this was not a haven for crabs, Nunnally describes how the crabs were "eerily" slow in movement and were either not concerned with the ROV, or were simply unaware.
"Normally, they scatter when they see the ROV lights," he says. "But these crabs seemed unbothered, or unaware of the robot's presence."
So what could be luring these crabs to their imminent demise? The researchers think that due to oil being similar to the oils found in crustaceans, the crabs are unwittingly drawn to the toxic site.
"The chemical makeup of oil is similar to the oils naturally present on crustaceans," Nunnally says. "They're attracted to the oil site, but everything goes downhill for them once they're in the area."
As sad as that is for the crabs, it gets worse. Not only are the crabs trapped in the oily muck-by their own volition-but they are forced to either starve or partake in cannibalism, as there are just no other sources of food available.
Sadly, it doesn't end there. It appears as though the crabs are experiencing mutation due to their toxic environment. "There were deformities, but mostly things were missing," Nunnally says. "You come in with eight legs and try to get away on four or five."
The shrimp were experiencing similar side effects as well. "They didn't look like shrimp from other sites," Nunnally says, adding that many of the small crustaceans had humps in their backs-tumors, perhaps.
Nunnally and crew weren't able to capture a specimen, but are hoping to secure funding for a return trip.
