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Reports of a new oil sheen first surfaced on Aug. 18, close to the site of last year’s devastating spill. BP and Coast Guard officials deployed two submersible vehicles to the site, but BP said a visual inspection indicated there was no oil released from the Macondo well. The Coast Guard said last week that the oil was the result of natural seeps and/or permitted releases at other oil drilling sites, according to the Press-Register newspaper in Mobile, Ala.

Reporters from the Press-Register took some samples of their own and sent them to Louisiana State University, where scientists confirmed the oil was Louisiana sweet crude. It was chemically similar to the oil from the Macondo well, but remains unclear whether that is the source, according to the newspaper’s account.

Volunteers with the Gulf Restoration Network and a group called On Wings of Care have been taking aerial photos since Aug. 19, finding a variety of oil slicks in several spots in the Gulf. Bonny Schumaker, founder of On Wings of Care, said the group has posted several flight logs with dozens of pictures of the sheens. Check it out here.

Natural seeps have occurred in the Gulf of Mexico for millennia, so it’s certainly possible that they are causing these new sheens. But several scientists said their location — right near the Macondo well — is intriguing.

There are a few explanations beyond natural seeps, including the possibility that oil has been leaking from the broken riser pipe that connected the Deepwater Horizon to the well. Neither the pipe nor the well has been salvaged, the Press-Register points out. Or, heavier hydrocarbon constituents could have settled on the bottom during the spill, and as bacteria have broken them down, lighter-density hydrocarbons are now slowly making their way to the surface. The most troubling possibility, the newspaper says, is that the oil is leaking out of the ground beneath the capped wellhead.

As we wait for more answers, let’s hope that is not the case.

[via UPI]

Miss the good old days of daily oil disaster news? Worry not, for another oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded this morning, leaving all 13 crew members in the water but – according to initial reports – all are alive and only one is injured. The rig is owned by Mariner Energy (somewhere a BP exec is breathing again) and is not currently producing, according to the Coast Guard. Updated. Details are sketchy right now, but rescuers are en route to the site about 80 miles south of the central Louisiana coast. We'll update as this one develops.

Update: Reuters is reporting that the Coast Guard has spotted a one-nautical-mile by 100-foot oil sheen in the water at the site of the rig explosion. The fire has been contained, but the flames have not yet been completely extinguished.

Update: USA Today now reports that the initial claim of an oil sheen by Mariner Energy cannot be confirmed by the Coast Guard, and that an aerial flyover by Mariner personnel could not locate the oil sheen reported earlier. In other good news, the fire aboard the oil platform has now been extinguished.

[NYT]