It has been reported that an oil slick in the Gulf Mexico has come with 20 miles of the coastline and Coast Guard officials said Tuesday they are considering setting the slick on fire.

Officials have said that the slick resulted from last week's oil rig explosion near Louisiana, which left 11 workers missing and presumably dead. Oil was leaking from a Deepwater Horizon well in the gulf, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, at a rate of 42,000 gallons a day.

Coast Guard officials have said that the slick threatens environmentally sensitive areas in the Mississippi River Delta.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said at a news conference on Tuesday, "If we don't secure the well, this could be one of the most serious oil spills in U. S. history."

The Houston Chronicle also said on Tuesday that the April 20 spill, though smaller than a huge 1979 spill near Mexico, is already worse than the 1979 Ixtoc 1 leak, if for no other reason than that 11 oil workers' lives were lost.

The Chronicle further reported that the 1979 spill released far moil oil into the environment than last week's disaster. The Ixtoc well poured about 140 million gallons of oil into the gulf for 295 days before it was capped. At its current rate, it would take nine years for the Deepwater Horizon spill to match the 1979 spill.

Scientists have said that the current oil spill is closer to the U. S. Gulf coast shores, and there is concern it could damage the coastline more than the 1979 spill did.

Marine biologists, however, say the clean-up system is better now than it was more than 30 years ago. (With Inputs from Agencies)