GuLF Study GuLF Study The GuLF Study, or Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study, is a five-year research project examining the human-health consequences of the "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill in April 2010. The spill followed an explosion on a drilling rig leased by BP, the British oil company, and led to the release of over four million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, 48 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the United States. The study was set up in June that year by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It is being conducted by the National Institute of
Environmental impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that the damage from the spill would rapidly resolve, three years into the recovery dolphins continue to die, fish are showing strange lesions, corals in the gulf have died and oil still remains in some marsh areas. Due to both its size and the way it was handled, there is little previous research to predict long-term effects. At the 2013 "Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference", oceanographer David Hollander presented data that showed as much as one-third of the oil released during the spill may still be in the gulf. Researchers described a phenomenon called "dirty blizzard":