Researchers said Friday they found dead and dying deepwater coral near the BP oil spill site that is covered in a brown substance.
"The compelling evidence that we collected constitutes a smoking gun" that the substance is tied to the BP spill, Penn State biologist Charles Fisher, said in a statement Friday.
"We have never seen anything like this," he added. "The visual data for recent and ongoing death are crystal clear and consistent over at least 30 colonies; the site is close to the Deepwater Horizon; the research site is at the right depth and direction to have been impacted by a deep-water plume, based on NOAA models and empirical data; and the impact was detected only a few months after the spill was contained."
"These kinds of coral are normally beautiful, brightly colored," Fisher said. "What you saw was a field of brown corals with exposed skeleton--white, brittle stars tightly wound around the skeleton, not waving their arms like they usually do."
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