New oil leakage has been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico, near the BP well that burst 15 months ago; the oil currently covers an area about seven kilometres long and 50 metres wide. It’s not clear if the oil is coming from the reservoir itself, or if’s been trapped in last year’s damaged rigging.

Al Jazeera sent some folks over to take a look, and interviewed researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who have confirmed that the oil that has been spotted on the ocean’s surface closely matches that of the MC252 (Mocando Well) which burst some months ago, causing massive damage to the regional ecology.

At present, researchers aren’t sure if this is just run-off from the previous leak, natural seepage, or something bigger:

[We] don’t understand why we’re seeing so much more oil out there right now than we’ve seen in the past … we need to dig in and investigate and see what is going on.

So that’s problematic, for those of us who sort of like the ocean.

[Source: Al Jazeera]