To advance understanding of the fundamental processes and mechanisms involved in marine blowouts and their environmental consequences, ensuring that society is better-prepared to mitigate such future events
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New Funding. New Look. New Goals.
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The Center for Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems (C-IMAGE) has a new look for our synthesis and legacy products. A newly designed website will make it easier to see new synthesis products, publications and news coming from C-IMAGE.
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Upcoming Events
20 April 2018
:
8th Anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon spill
- To learn more about the 2010 spill and other mega spills in the Gulf of Mexico, visit
BeneathTheHorizon.org
.
28 April 2018
:
Advancing Oil Spill Research Webinar Series
- The Marine Technology Society is hosting it's final webinar, which will feature Chuck Fischer and Samantha Joye.
Free Registration Available
.
3 June 2018
: 39th Anniversary of the
Ixtoc I
oil spill.
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Data Management Docket
With the new funding for C-IMAGE III, all co-PIs are required to attend 30-minute webinars hosted by GRIIDC. Upcoming webinars include:
19 April 2018: Organizing Data - Best Practices and GRIIDC Submission
24 April 2018: How to Submit Data to GRIIDC
The following data attribution is required on all GoMRI or C-IMAGE funded publications:
"This research was made possible by a grant from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative/C-IMAGE II. Data are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information & Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org (doi: [, , ,…]).”"
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Advancing Oil Spill Technology:
Beyond the Horizon
CALL FOR PAPERS
Manuscripts due
20 June 2018
Click MTS logo above for more details
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C-IMAGE received it's third and final round of funding from the
Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI)
in September 2017. With the $5.1 million funding our partners through 2019, C-IMAGE will focus on
synthesis
and
legacy of the last seven years of Gulf research. This RFP-VI funding marks the end-to-end support from GoMRI. Congratulations to the three other GoMRI centers for their third round of oil spill research
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Near- & Far-field Modeling and High-pressure Experimentation
Efforts of our tasks 1 & 2 working groups investigate how oil, gases, and dispersants influence the ultimate fate of the oil (sediments, surface, mid-water)
Research goals include:
- Incorporate high pressure experimental findings with live oil, dispersants and degradation rates
- Develop MOSSFA and sedimentation models
- Continue generating 3-D fields of oil concentrations to assess ecological effects of DwH
- Simulate alternative deep spill scenarios and integrate ecosystem modeling outcomes
- Inject dispersant into live-oil experiments to simulate DwH response
- Develop Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE) model using a laboratory to field “scale-up” approach
- Perform critical experiments for future spills with varying blowout conditions, oil types and biodegradation capacity
Simulating the conditions of the DwH blowout in high-pressure laboratories provides key input parameters to the models such as accurate droplet size distributions, rise velocities, and mass transfer in high-pressure, low-temperature environments.
A fully integrated oil spill transport model will give the response community abilities to select specific locations, potential dispersant use, and oceanographic conditions to accurately predict the distributions and consequences of a spill and subsequent response strategies.
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Springer Agrees to
DwH
Book Series
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To summarize C-IMAGE studies taking place since 2011, Springer Publishing has agreed to publish a two-volume series with chapters written by C-IMAGE and GoMRI affiliates.
Deep Oil Spills: Facts, Fate, Effects
and
Scenarios and Responses to Future Deep Oil Spills - Fighting the Next War
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Sediment, Microbial Degradation, and MOSSFA
The nine research institutions collaborating in task 3 are studying the seafloor sediments and water samples taken throughout the life of C-IMAGE and the
OneGulf expeditions.
Research goals include:
- Complete analysis of samples collected in 2017 (Δ14C, δ13C, forams, macrofauna, 234Th)
- Assess ecosystem impacts of MOSSFA using Deepwater Horizon and Ixtoc I as known instances
- Identify components for MOS formation and distribution
- Develop a dispersion model to simulate MOSSFA production
C-IMAGE has established a Gulf-wide assessment of benthic recovery on annual and decadal scales. Understanding recoveries of past spills provides context for predicting recovery in future spills. These concepts can be incorporated into revised policies for oil spill response.
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Key Synthesis Questions
How do dispersants and environmental conditions contribute to deep oil/gas droplet plumes in DWH? How can response scenarios change with differing environmental conditions (e.g., a different crude, depths, temperatures, etc.)?
Is the formation of MOSSFA determined by a specific combination of environmental factors (e.g., clay particle density, oil volume, dispersant use, etc.)? What are the sedimentary “signatures” of MOSSFA events subsequent to the DwH and Ixtoc I events? Can we predict when/where and with what intensity a MOSSFA-like event would occur?
How resilient was the GoM marine ecosystem to the impacts of DwH? What constitutes a “resilient” ecosystem to perturbations such as marine blowouts? Would other regions of the Gulf be greater/less resilient to a large-scale spill?
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Ecosystem Impacts
The field component of C-IMAGE involves continuous time series and baseline data collected from across the Gulf of Mexico supports the efforts of task 4.
Research goals include:
- Complete HPLC and GC/MS analyses to derive Gulf-wide PAH maps
- Incorporate SIPPER plankton scans and satellite imagery to the modeling module
- Develop metrics for community resilience using biodiversity data
- Compare impacts of PAH exposure of fish from the natural environment and exposure studies
- Determine factors responsible for changes in marine mammal densities following oil spills
- Assess the resiliency of reef populations to multiple stressors through metagenomics studies
The collection of
OneGulf surveys provide material for Gulf wide maps of acute and chronic PAH exposure, depuration, and impacts in various trophic levels. The extensive library of field collections can help us estimate the population level connectivity in the Gulf to determine resilience capacity.
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Toxicology Studies
The laboratory experiments at the Mote Marine Aquarium and Wageningen University bring a controlled setting to compare and connect the finding from the field data.
Research goals include:
- Compare biomarkers in fish from field specimens with those in exposure studies
- Spawn F1 generations of trial fish to identify sub-lethal effects across generations
- Expand individual immunotoxicity to adverse effects in larger population
C-IMAGE III will expand our understanding of the lasting sublethal oil impacts on fisheries by testing potential heritability from oil exposures to fish.
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Ecosystem Modeling
Ecosystem models provide a way to connect the data collected throughout C-IMAGE. From the near- & far-field models, field data collected during the OneGulf expeditions, to exposure trials. the models
Research goals include:
- Refine Atlantis model with MOSSFA impacts and integration/validation with far-field transport models
- Compare the Atlantis and Campeche Bay models for comparative studies
- Apply MOSSFA impacts to the Campeche Bay model
- Estimate plankton flux as a result of MOSSFA events
Compiling and integrating results from GoMRI studies into ecosystem modeling efforts can provide assessments of cascading food web impacts and predict long term recovery. Further, adding a MOSSFA component to ecosystem models can help responders better identify potentially biologically sensitive areas.
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Key Synthesis Questions
How persistent and widespread are PAHs and other oil components in the environment? In biota? How does DwH relate to other sources in the pollution budget of the GoM?
Would the microbial response from plankton follow a similar response in the event of another deep-sea blowout? Would differences in the carbon cycle between the northern and southern Gulf of Mexico change the degradation of gas and oil?
Are pre-spill baselines adequate for effective response and restoration, and quantitative assessment of impacts in the event of another spill?
How can GoMRI research be better used in policy formulation, disaster response and damage assessments in the future? How can the results of GoMRI, NRDA, and other agencies be better synthesized and more informative?
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