To gauge how acidification might be affecting the Pacific, biological oceanographer Nina Bednaršek of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Seattle and colleagues collected pteropods at 13 sites during a 2011
research cruise between Washington and southern California.
To decipher what was happening, a team led by marine ecologist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia in Athens, analyzed methane concentrations and methane consumption rates that the researchers had recorded during 10
research cruises, one conducted in March 2010, before the spill, and the rest conducted
between May and December 2010.