Oil droplet fate in the Gulf of Mexico

The fate of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout can be best understood from the perspective of small oil droplets. These were essentially created deep in the well when the methane gas came out of solution due to reduced pressures. This caused a very turbulent flow with resulting high shearing forces creating a mixture of methane gas and generally microscopic sized oil droplets. Although initially buoyed upward due to the methane gas bubbles entrained in the flow, these oil droplets were eventually transported according to Stokes´ Law and ocean currents. Along the way, the oil droplets tended to get filtered out of the water column through a variety of dynamic physical and biological processes.