NEWS TIP: Duke Environment School Launches Gulf Oil Spill Website and Experts List

Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment has launched a new website, http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/oilspill , to provide reporters, policymakers and concerned citizens with the latest news and images of the spill, along with links to a list of researchers from Duke and North Carolina Sea Grant who can provide timely commentary on spill-related science, economics and policy.
 
The researchers listed on the site cover a wide range of topics, from the potential short- and long-term effects of the spill on endangered species, fisheries and coastal communities, to expertise on offshore drilling, underwater oil and gas exploration, energy policy, marine wildlife and ecology, natural resource economics, coastal geology, and oceanography.
 
The site includes links to posts by Nicholas School Dean William L. Chameides, who has been blogging about the spill and its impacts at www.thegreengrok.com.
 
Site visitors also can access information on Duke alumni who are conducting research related to the spill or are working or volunteering in affected areas.
 
A link to blogs and a live webcam from the 135-foot seagoing research vessel Cape Hatteras will be added soon. The ship, operated by the Duke/University of North Carolina Oceanographic Consortium, is scheduled to leave the Duke Marine Lab for the Gulf on June 5. From June 10-20, a crew of scientists aboard the vessel will conduct National Science Foundation-funded research to quantify the amount of methane from the spill being dissolved or retained in the water column and emitted to the atmosphere, as well as the methane’s effects on beneficial bacteria and dissolved oxygen levels in the region’s waters.
 
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