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Oil spill dispersant could damage coral populations http://apocadocs.com/s.pl?1280928805
Coral populations in the Gulf of Mexico could fall because of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster - from contact not with oil but with the dispersant that's supposed to get rid of it.
Laboratory tests suggest that Corexit 9500A, the dispersant used by BP to tackle the largest offshore oil spill in US history, stops coral larvae latching onto the surfaces where they usually mature.
The larvae, often the size of a pinhead, float in the sea before latching onto surfaces such as rocks on the sea floor, cliff faces or old oil rigs. It takes hundreds of years for a mature colony to develop.... Preliminary and as yet unpublished results show [coral] larvae in the oil-water mix are able to latch onto the discs, whereas those in beakers containing the dispersant remained suspended in the water.... "You should test each [coral species] individually, but of course we can't usually do that," says Steve Ross, a zoologist and deep-sea coral specialist at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington. "I think we can assume that if there's a negative impact on one type of coral... there will be a negative impact on another."
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But thank God there's no oil on the surface!
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