UGA receives $18.8 million to continue Gulf of Mexico oil spill research

November 18, 2014

ECOGIG-2 has been awarded a three-year, $18.8 million dollar grant to continue the work of ECOGIG, by the Gulf of Mexico Research Institute (G0MRI).  ECOGIG-2's mission is to understand the environmental signatures and impacts of natural seepage versus that of abrupt, large hydrocarbon inputs on coupled benthic-pelagic processes in deep-water ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico, and to chart the long-term effects and mechanisms of ecosystem recovery from the Macondo well blowout. "The ECOGIG-2 research group is conducting some of the most urgent and perhaps most important monitoring and analysis projects ever conducted in the Gulf of Mexico," said Alan T. Dorsey, dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "This crucial new support will help produce a better understanding of the Gulf ecosystems and bolster efforts to secure the economy of the Gulf region by informing our stewardship of its natural mechanisms and processes."

UGA marine sciences faculty Samantha Joye, Christof Meile, Renato Castelao and Catherine Edwards work with ECOGIG-2. Other Georgia researchers include  Annalisa Bracco and Joe Montoya of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Additional institutions include the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences; University of California, Santa Barbara; Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; Florida State University; Harvard University; University of Maryland; University of North Carolina; Oregon State University; Pennsylvania State University; University of Southern Mississippi; Temple University; University of Texas at Austin and SailDrone.