Scientists finally solved mystery of the missing BP oil

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An estimated 4.2 million barrels had spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from an oil well. But within weeks of that spill, about one-half of the oil inexplicably went missing.

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A pair of recent studies, however, point to the possibility the oil was there all along — it was just hiding. According to papers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Environmental Science & Technology, while everyone was frenetically searching the waters for oil, millions of gallons of it quietly sank to the ocean floor. But it’s not exactly clear how much; estimates vary wildly in the studies.

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That’s when he developed a novel process to search for the oil using carbon 14 — found in regular ocean sediment, but not oil. Using what’s described as an “inverse tracer,” he and other FSU researchers scanned more than 9,200 square miles near Deepwater Horizon and found that more than 3,200 square miles were stained with oil, reported Live Science.

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