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Some speculate that we have more information about outer space than we do about the marine environment occupying more than 75 percent of our planet. In fact, prior to the oil spill, deepwater research was a relatively unfunded Figure 3.3 The seafood industry in Louisiana and and unappreciated endeavor comelsewhere along the Gulf Coast was severely impacted by the oil spill. pared to coastal efforts. But LSU is fortunate to count many top-notch, open-ocean research specialists among its faculty. Malinda Sutor, assistant professor of research in the School of the Coast & Environment’s Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences, has conducted active research through both the response and damage assessment phases of the spill. Through cooperative work with NOAA, Sutor was on a boat in the disaster zone approximately one month after the crisis occurred. NOAA had anticipated that the use of dispersants would break the oil into droplets that would then become suspended in a plume midway down the water column. But, in order to accurately adjust the amount of dispersant being used, they needed to know precisely what size the oil droplets were. Sutor had previously used instruments designed to determine plankton size and gather other precise data on these tiny sea creatures; fortunately, those same instruments were able to be used for measuring oil droplets. Now well into the damage assessment phase, the state of the plankton community is a primary indicator of damage incurred due to the spill. As the primary plankton researcher with a cooperative program through NOAA and BP, Sutor is leading this initiative and hopes to house the plankton analysis lab at LSU. Figure 3.4 LSU Professor Mark Benfield and one of the ROVs used to conduct deepwater research in the Gulf.
Mark Benfield, professor in the LSU Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences, has been leading the Gulf Scien-