Oil From Deepwater Spill Collecting on Barrier Island Rookery

Barataria Bay, Louisiana, USA

Wind pushes and collects oil of different densities from the Deepwater Horizon spill into concaves in the shoreline wetlands on the edge of a barrier island pelican rookery in Barataria Bay. In 2010, British Petroleum was drilling the Macondo well in over a mile of water, with the semi-submersible drill rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by TransOcean, when a bubble of methane gas erupted up the well casing, which was being built by Haliburton. The explosion wrecked and sank the drill rig and gushed 4.9 million barrels (210 million gallons) of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the ultimate environmental effects of which are still unknown.

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