This week, two Florida State University oceanography professors dug trenches on a stretch of Pensacola Beach that had recently been cleaned of visible oil and tar balls. What they found, reports National Geographic, was unsettling: Large swaths of oil up to 2 feet deep remained.

“So far, we haven’t seen any rapid degradation... More

Oil is no longer spewing from the damaged Deepwater Horizon drilling site, but how the oil that is already spilled will continue to effect Gulf ecosystems is largely unknown. Ian MacDonald, a professor of oceanography at Florida State, shared his thoughts during an Aug. 1 interview on NPR.

“The question is: Will the Gulf of... More

“There’s a tremendous amount of outrage with the oil spill, and rightfully so. But where’s the outrage at the thousands and millions of little cuts we’ve made on a daily basis?”

— Felicia Coleman, director of Florida State’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory, quoted in More

“My bet is that BP will finally go bankrupt from the tort liability and the environmental liability,” she said. “Hypothetically, a bluefin tuna farmer in the Mediterranean could end up with a claim against BP.”

— Florida State University environmental law professor Robin Kundis... More

In some parts of the Florida Panhandle, coastal communities say they’re seeing 80 percent cancellation rates for vacation rentals because of oil and tar balls washing up the beaches from the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Discussing the summer resort season that wasn’t is Mark Bonn, the Robert H. Dedman Professor of Service... More

“It wouldn’t surprise me if there were 2,000 communities, from suburbs to cities.”

— Florida State University oceanography Professor Ian R. MacDonald, quoted in The New York Times on June 22, 2010, about the possible... More

A Florida State University oceanographer is pointing out another environmental threat from the Gulf oil spill that has been little discussed until now: the potential for tons of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to make its way into the Earth’s atmosphere, thereby increasing the rate of global warming.

Jeff Chanton is the... More

As the BP oil spill inexorably evolves into the world’s worst environmental disaster, Florida State University oceanographer Ian MacDonald warns that the oil could wash up on European shores before the end of summer.

“It’s entirely possible,” MacDonald, a professor of oceanography at Florida State, said in an interview... More

"Once you have oil spewing out of the bottom of the floor of the ocean, anything can occur," said Mark Bonn, the Robert H. Dedman Professor in Services Management in FSU's Dedman School of Hospitality, during a June 3 radio interview... More

"The source of reliable information on this has not been the government," said biological oceanographer Ian MacDonald, a professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at FSU, in a June 3 TIME article... More