Responses of Benthic Communities and Seimentary Dynamis to Hydrocarbon Exposure in Neritic and Bathyal Ecosystems: Phase II

This work continues a research campaign which began in 2010 as the oil was still spilling. In that year, sampling stations were established in coastal marshes of Louisiana and Mississippi, coastal waters in the Mississippi, Chandeleur and Breton Sounds as well as deeper water stations on the continental shelf, slope and upper rise. These sampling stations are being revisited and re-sampled in 2011, and include a wide range of sedimentary environments and benthic ecosystems over a bathymetric gradient stretching from the shoreline to more than 2,700 meters in the deep sea.