Gulfcast: Dispatches From The Gulf

When the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred, it was difficult to know where the oil might end up. The LASER team’s goal was to study how the oil spreads out via ocean currents, so they could create predictive models for future spills. Thousand of drifters would be required to execute the experiment, but existing drifters were extremely expensive due to the GPS component. Two years were spent designing specialized drifters into a low-cost, packable version that performs well in the open ocean and is biodegradable. NOTE: Science is continually evolving. To see the latest research updates on this topic, please visit the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) web site at gulfresearchinitiative.org.