Oil spill ramifications pour in

On 20 April the offshore oil-drilling rig known as Deepwater Horizon was completing the finishing touches on its latest well in the Gulf of Mexico when it suffered an explosion on board, resulting in the death of 11 and injury of several others. The rig then sunk approximately a mile to the ocean floor, where it remains. The loss of life in the incident was only the beginning of what is now a major environmental and economic crisis, as oil has been gushing into the Gulf since the explosion and subsequent sinking at the estimated rate of 210,000 gallons a day. If current estimates are accurate, and if the flow of oil continues unabated, the current spill would reach the proportions of the notorious Exxon Valdez incident News focus in Alaska in less than two months time. To the question of how this happened, the oil company BP, which was leasing the rig from Transocean, claims that a safety mechanism known as a blowout preventer apparently failed to activate when the well head became compromised; attempts to manually activate the device using remotely operated submersibles have failed thus far. Meanwhile, a huge slick is rapidly forming in the Gulf, its boundaries While BP battles to stem the oil leak, Cyrus Martin looks at the growing threats from the slick in the Gulf of Mexico. Alarm: A dead turtle washed up on a Louisiana beach earlier this month. Although this might not have been a direct result of the oil spill, scientists are preparing for a potential environmental disaster.