The shape of things to come

Mathematical methods help predict movement of oil and ash following environmental disasters. When oil started gushing into the Gulf of Mexico in late April 2010, friends asked George Haller whether he was tracking its movement. That's because the McGill engineering professor has been working for years on ways to better understand patterns in the seemingly chaotic motion of oceans and air. Meanwhile, colleagues of Josefina Olascoaga in Miami were asking the geophysicist a similar question. Fortunately, she was. For those involved in managing the fallout from environmental disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it is essential to have tools that predict how the oil will move, so that they make the best possible use of resources to control the spill. Thanks to work done by Haller and Olascoaga, such tools now appear to be within reach.