Abstract
The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) program funded research for 10 years following the Deepwater Horizon incident to address five themes, one of which was technology developments for improved response, mitigation, detection, characterization, and remediation associated with oil spills and gas releases. This paper features a sampling of such developments or advancements, most of which cite studies funded by GoMRI, but we also include several developments that occurred outside this program. We provide descriptions of new techniques or the novel application or enhancement of existing techniques related to studies on the evolution of the subsurface oil plume, the collection of data on ocean currents to support oil transport modeling, and oil spill modeling. We also feature developments related to the interactions of oil with particulate matter and microbial organisms, sampling for studies and analysis of biogeochemical processes related to oil fate, human health risks from inhalation of oil spill chemicals, impacts on marine life, and alternative dispersant technologies to Corexit®. Many of the techniques featured here have contributed to complementary or subsequent research and have applications beyond oil spill research that can contribute to a wide range of scientific endeavors.
Highlights
Over a 10-year period following the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) incident, the independent Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) funded a variety of efforts to better understand its impacts and to be better prepared for future oil spills
The DHW oil spill was unprecedented in the amounts of oil and gas released and the quantities of dispersants applied near the blowout site at 1,500 m water depth and at the ocean surface
The 37 technological developments highlighted in this paper are examples of innovations that were introduced during the scientific response to the DWH incident
Summary
Over a 10-year period following the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) incident, the independent Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) funded a variety of efforts to better understand its impacts and to be better prepared for future oil spills. We reviewed publications whose authors associated their studies with the program’s research theme of technology, and conducted a limited review of publications associated with the four other program themes whose titles, abstracts, or methods suggested possible technological advancements This survey yielded about 250 potential candidates, which were further reduced by the elimination of studies that broadly discussed or assessed technology, were theoretical in nature, lacked clarity of an innovation, or lacked a clear application for oil spill research. We further eliminated advancements related to the tracking and analysis of oil spill components and transformation products (discussed in Rullkötter and Farrington, 2021, in this issue) and those concerned with improvements to ocean circulation modeling (discussed in Boufadel et al, 2021, in this issue) This process resulted in the 37 technological developments featured here that broadly reflect the scope of the GoMRI program. We acknowledge that the selection process and space constraints necessitated the exclusion of important and interesting innovations that have occurred since the DWH oil spill
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