UM, USM to research impact of Gulf oil spill

OXFORD and HATTIESBURG — The University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi are among dozens of universities making up eight separate research teams participating in a $112.5-million project to learn how the Gulf of Mexico has fared since the 2010 BP oil spill.

Ole Miss is the lead university in a 14-member consortium awarded $20 million over three years to study “Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf.”

The teams also will study ways to respond more effectively to future disasters similar to the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill that cost 11 lives and spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

Another goal for the study is learning how oil behaves at different depths.