Coral Damage Traced to Gulf Oil Spill March 26, 2012, 5:39 pm Scientists say they have definitively linked damage to deep-sea corals in the Gulf of Mexico to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The corals were at a depth of 4,300 feet, in close proximity to the Macondo well. Scientists relied on an advanced technique that allows them to "fingerprint" the source of petroleum hydrocarbons.