Wes Tunnell Ph.D
Biology – Texas A&M, Harte Research Institute/Gulf of Mexico Studies
Host: Basima Farhat
Previously Aired On: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 – Listen to the Show!
Dr. Wes Tunnell is a broadly trained marine biologist/ecologist with a particular interest in field studies on coral reefs and coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico. Although his current focus is on biodiversity of the Gulf of Mexico, he has studied and published on coral reef ecology, coastal ecology, molluscan distribution and ecology, oil spill impacts, brachiopods, colonial waterbirds, and vertebrate fossils from the seabed. Dr. Tunnell published a book on the Laguna Madre of Texas and Tamaulipas in 2001 and another on Coral Reefs of the Southern Gulf of Mexico in 2007.
Dr. Tunnell will discuss this most recent Gulf of Mexico Oil rig explosion which should not be compared to the Exxon Valdez disaster but to another Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion – the Ixtoc 1, off the coast of Mexico. It was the worst peacetime oil spill on record and occurred in 1979.
The current spill “is kind of a worst-case scenario,” Tunnell said.
What makes this spill relentless and most similar to Ixtoc 1 is that it’s an active well that keeps flowing. The Exxon Valdez was a tanker with a limited supply of oil. The rig 40 miles from the Gulf Coast may leak for months before a relief well can be drilled to stop the flow.
I have read that Francis Shepard with funding from the American Petroleum Institute provided an early study of the geography of the Gulf of Mexico in 1960.
Dr. Shepard worked for the Scripps Oceanography Institute in San Diego.
I have also been told by a group of Schlumberger oilmen that the Harte Institute’s interest in the Gulf of Mexico is as tied to oil discoveries as to environmental concerns. Is this true?
James Carville was screaming for help in Louisiana from Scripps, the Army Corp of Engineers….Superman, anyone with expertise who could help. Should this symbiosis be a cause for real concern? Can oil money be used to help the oil companies look beyond petroleum? Even if it means limiting their production until the safety technology catches up with the other aspects of drilling and deposit discovery?
WHC
Comment by Will Carr | June 23, 2010