If you read yesterday’s blog post, you know that pollution is one of the major threats to the survival of coral reefs around the world. This pollution may enter the oceans from land, such as runoff from farms and manufacturing companies. It can also come from ships that are crossing the seas. Last year about 13 000 tons of oil spilt out of oil tankers into the ocean. This oil is very damaging to both the coral that forms coral reefs and the animals that live on the reefs themselves. So clean up is necessary and needs to occur as quickly as possible before the reef is harmed. But sometimes, the chemicals used to clean up the water cause an even bigger problem than the spill itself.

How does one clean up the ocean after an oil spill? One thing that is often done is that a chemical called a “detergent” is added to the water. A detergent is similar to soap, except that it is more powerful. Its job is to break down oil droplets so they can be cleaned up from the water easier. But when scientists recently studied the effects different detergents and crude oil (the type of oil carried by an oil tanker) had on coral in the lab, they found some shocking results! The detergents and the smaller droplets of oil they created caused the coral to die in larger numbers than the larger droplets of crude oil did! The scientists discovered that when it comes to coral, oil spill cleanup was more harmful than the spill itself. Why is this the case? It turns out than when the oil is broken down, the more dangerous toxins (harmful chemicals) in oil are able to enter the water, killing the reefs more quickly.