Gulfcast: Dispatches From The Gulf

Dr. Kristen Thyng is a research professor at Texas A&M University, where she’s put a background in physics and math to study transport modeling of oil in the Texas and Louisiana shelf. Dr. Thyng uses complex models based on thousands of field measurements to run what are called “drifters” through possible ocean current scenarios. Essentially, these models let her make a very educated guess where a message in a bottle — or a patch of oil — would end up if you dropped it anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico. 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.