Washington (AFP) - Around two
million barrels of oil from the BP spill off the US Gulf Coast in 2010
are believed to have settled on the ocean floor, according to a study
Monday.
The fate of
two million of the nearly five million barrels that gushed into the open
waters has remained a mystery until now, said the findings in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed US
journal.
Researchers analyzed
samples collected at more than 500 locations around the Macondo Well,
where the leaked oil emerged, and found it had spread widely, settling
down like dirt in a bathtub.
The
oil was found to have spread as far as 3,200 square kilometers (1,235
square miles) from the site, and may have gone even further, the report
said.
"Our analysis suggests the oil initially was suspended in deep waters and then settled to the underlying sea floor,"
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