HOUSTON, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- U.S. scientists said Monday that large amounts of oil have accumulated on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor, contradicting earlier statements by federal officials that the oil leaking from BP's damaged underwater well had largely gone.
Researchers aboard the research ship Cape Hatteras, which ended its research trip to the spill site last week, found oil in samples dug up from the seafloor 140 miles around the site of the ruptured Macondo well, Kevin Yeager, a University of Southern Mississippi assistant professor, told USA Today.
Oil found in samples ranged from light degraded oil to thick raw crude, said Yeager, the chief scientist on the research trip.
A research team on the Arctic Sunrise vessel, sponsored by Greenpeace, also said on Monday that large amounts of oil are still in the Gulf of Mexico.
"We are still seeing a lot of oil out there," John Hocevar, a marine biologist with Greenpeace, said at a news conference on Monday to mark the end of a three-month research trip by the Arctic Sunrise.
An explosion on BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off the Louisiana coast late April killed 11 workers and unleashed the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
U.S. federal agencies have said that most of the runaway oil has evaporated, dissipated, been disperse, burned or skimmed.
(source:xinhuanet.com)
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