Fred
Rainey was standing aboard the 100-foot-long Spree about seven
miles off the marshy Louisiana coast, rocking on four-foot swells. A microbiologist
at Louisiana State University, he was on the trail of an unlikely quarry:
slime. In particular, he sought algae, sponges, sea urchins, soft corals
and other squishy, mostly immobile organisms that have attached to the
oil platforms............
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Pictures (Courtesy:Smithsonian
© Jeffrey L Rotman)
Top left: Fred Rainey, with Marine life collected
at sea.
Top right: Divers collect organisms from an oil rig
Bottom left: Deep sea corals
Bottom right: The Spree tied to a Gulf of Mexico oil
rig
