Monstrous underwater oil plumes found in US Gulf Coast
 

Scientists have found vast underwater plumes of oil, one 10 miles (16km) long and a mile wide, in the Gulf of Mexico, following last month's rig disaster.

A Georgia University expert warned oxygen levels had fallen 30% in some areas of the sea, and it could take decades to repair the damage.

BP is still trying to insert a tube into the gushing well to siphon the crude to a ship on the surface.

The US government has demanded BP make clear its commitment to pay damages.

Researchers from the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology say they have detected several sprawling oil slicks lurking just beneath the surface of the sea and at depths of 4,000ft (1,200m).

Dead zones

The find suggests the scale of the potential environmental disaster is much worse than previously feared since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew up on 20 April, killing 11 workers.


We've never seen anything like this before - it's impossible to fathom the impact

Professor Samantha Joye
University of Georgia


Obama: No more cosying up to oil
Samantha Joye, a marine science professor at the University of Georgia, said: "It could take years, possibly decades, for the system to recover from an infusion of this quantity of oil and gas.

"We've never seen anything like this before. It's impossible to fathom the impact."

The experts say the oxygen depletion is likely to continue, endangering sea life and raising the prospect of underwater dead zones.

The scientists said the chemical dispersants BP has been dumping underwater may be preventing the oil from rising to the top of the ocean.

Official estimates doubted

The oil giant has said the chemicals, which it began deploying on Friday, have already resulted in less oil surfacing.


BP's battle with oil leak continues
Some scientists cast doubt on official estimates of the oil flow rate, saying the widely repeated figure of 5,000 barrels per day dramatically understates the real amount.

BP has failed in its latest attempts, begun on Friday, to thread a 6in-wide (15cm) tube into a damaged oil pipe a mile beneath the surface.

Like a long straw, it is intended to slurp oil to a ship on the surface, and a stopper surrounding it would stem the leaking crude.

The tube could capture more than three-quarters of the leak; BP must also contain a smaller spill on the seabed nearby.

A week ago, BP tried to cap the well with a 100-tonne box, but gave up after it became encrusted with ice crystals.

On Saturday, the Obama administration demanded immediate clarification from BP over its commitment to pay damages for the spill.

Officials said they wanted to be sure BP would honour commitments not to limit costs to a US statutory cap of $75m (£50m).

It is not clear what prompted the letter as BP said last week the cap was irrelevant and it would settle all costs.

Mississippi has become the third US state to have oil wash up on its coast, along with Louisiana and Alabama.

The spill is threatening to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez leak off Alaska as America's worst environmental disaster.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8685368.stm

Makes me sick to my stomach

So much for the oil rises to the surface theory.

This is going to cause damage to sea life far beyond what we can imagine.

I have no words to describe how this disaster makes me feel.

Someone needs to be held accountable, and sadly I know that will never happen.

free oil

Did anyone really think we would get a clear picture of the disaster from BP:error:error:error

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

We'll still have a few boneheads popping into this thread to say this it's no big deal.

call me a bonehead but i'm choosing to wait & see what the consequences are instead of jumping to conclusions.

fact is, a lot of natural seepage of oil from seabeds is common and the sea still functions.

that being said, it's more than ludicrous to allow BP to be in charge of the mess and the dispersants they are using might be of more consequence than the actual oil.

I like that BP is more concerned with trying to pump the escaping oil to a fucking ship, instead of trying to ensure the environment isn't being fucked up beyond repair. Fuck, it's like they think they live on a different planet or something. And how about all the fisherman and shrimpers whose livelihoods they are fucking up?

This environmental disaster is of great impact. Government is making BP pay for damages.

Here are some petro factoids that might offer some perspective - at least to non-dogmatic Environmentalists.

‘’Natural seepage of crude oil from the sea floor into the marine environment of North America exceed 47 million gallons and 180 million gallons globally.

“Activities associated with extraction and production introduce an average of 880 thousand gallons in North American waters and 11 million gallons worldwide.”

Source, “Oil in the Sea III” Committee on Oil in the Sea - National Research Council.

“Natural seeps from the earth’s undersea strata introduce about 1700 barrels of oil a day in U.S. marine waters, which is approximately 150 times the amount from offshore oil and gas activities.”

Source, “National Academy of Sciences 2003-2004.

“Natural seepage introduces 160 kilotons into North American Waters annually. Total from exploration, extraction, transportation and refining is approximately 12 kilotons.”

Source, “U.S. Dept. of the Interior - Minerals Management Service 2004.

“Activities associated with exploration and production account for 3 - 5% of all releases due to anthropogenic activity.”

Source, “Committee on Oil in the Sea: Inputs and Effects - National Research Council - National Academy of Science 2003”

Here are some more fun factoids.

1. More oil was spilled into the sea from shipping losses every 6 weeks of W.W.II than in the entire 65 years since the war’s end. The oceans survived.

2. The “hopane marker” of petro -chemical pollution in the sea reached it’s maximum in 1946 and has been in decline ever since.

3. In 1792-6, George Vancouver, Captain Cooke’s famous navigator made notes in his log regarding numerous, vast oil slicks off the Pacific Coast of North America. Around the middle of the 16th century Juan Cabrillo sailed through oil slicks that stretched for many miles along the California coast. Mountains of tar glistened along the shore line.

4. Over the past 20,000 years sea levels have risen more than 300 feet and the erosion caused by rising levels has increased “natural seepage.”

5.University of Ca. Santa Barbara researchers (Hardly a neo-con group) find that off shore drilling reduces natural seepage of crude oil by more than 50%.

6. 20-30 tons of oil leak from southern California fissures every day!.

7. More than 70% of anthropogenic petro/chem pollution in the sea comes from storm drains - urban run off from; parking lots, roads, asphalt roofs and millions of miles of emulsifying asphalt roads around the world.

You're right, so it's no big deal. Business as usual!

i'm right about what?

It's a big deal because it's 50 miles off shore, spewing out at a crazy rate.. however you don't have to fear the World ending as it's also a natural event that happens at extreme amounts every day already.

So when the hype comes to start buying carbon footprint things, you will know it's bullshit. But this time it's going to be hard as hell to argue.

You have got to be kidding.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3276/...386f246c63.jpg

Palin = IDIOT

no, it's a fact.

i trust that fact much more at this point in time than i do the media.

there is more oil leaked into the oceans via shipping oil on oil tankers than otherwise. it would take ~200 tankers traveling across 2 oceans to make up for that oil. that's going to release more oil into the oceans than otherwise.

fact is, it was failed government policy (or lack thereof) that allowed this accident to happen.

Found this:
Deepwater Horizon Response: Official Site of the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command.
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Response:
http://www.d8externalaffairs.com/go/site/2931/

So exactly what is your point? That this oil leak is no big deal? You think the worst thing that will happen is that you'll be a little pissed off not being able to swim in the ocean at Internext Miami this summer?

Dude. That the fact that it's dumping the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez tanker every 4 days, and the fact that BP estimates it will take at least 75 Days to drill a relief well, is a major major thing to worry about. I have friends in Florida who say they can smell oil in the air now. I'll bet you that we haven't even begun to see what kind of disaster this really is. It will kill all of the life in the Gulf for STARTERS...

This is much much worse than any "natural" oil spill my friend..

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Co...66px-1030a.jpg



Checkout this high res image taken April 29th by Terra satellite's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS):
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ima...010119_lrg.jpg

Now do you still think this shit "isn't so bad?"

Didn't BP pay off the government to relax the policy that would require that blow-out safety valve which would have most likely have prevented this disaster from happening?

gear down, big rig. you're so agitated you missed my post stating i am going to wait for facts.

i certainly will not rely on sensationalized media and certainly not on GFY news.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010...l-debunked.php

<i>"Natural" doesn't always mean good, despite what the marketing people would like you to believe. Arsenic, lead and mercury are as natural as can be, but you wouldn't want them in your food or your living room. Well, crude oil is also natural, but it's toxic to most living organisms (exceptions are rare, mostly bacteria), and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico are the living room and fridge of countless species.

These ecosystems haven't evolved in contact with oil, in the same way that most of the heavy metals found deep in the Earth's crust are toxic to us because over evolutionary time we haven't been exposed to them much. It's the same basic principle that explains why oxygen is toxic to certain microorganisms because they evolved in places where there's little or no O2.

Second Level
And while the oil itself might be "natural", the spill itself certainly isn't. That oil was sequestered deep underground and has been there for millions of years. It very probably wasn't going anywhere until we drilled there. In that regard, it's 100% a human-made disaster.
</i>

that's correct. they were also not required to follow environmental impact regulations prior to obtaining the lease.

You dont think capping the still flowing oil up and keeping it from pouring out more and more isnt protecting the environment?

Hahaha... yeah, ok, I'll gear down.. :) Sorry dude, but this oil spill really has me pissed off. Of course everyones going to try to fix it and save all the cutsey animals and fishies, but.. 75 days? It just freaks me out.

It also kills me that the world still relies so heavily on oil. Oil and coal kill tens of thousands of people every year (war, pollution, disasters, etc). It's time to take another look at Nuclear power and to start taxing gas-powered cars and giving tax breaks to Plug-in Electric cars.

Grrrrrrrr..

much misinformation in this post.

More oil was spilled into the sea from shipping losses every 6 weeks of W.W.II than in the entire 65 years since the war’s end. The oceans survived.

If that was the case yea. But, they didn't cap it. They are siphoning it. Which means oil is still pouring into the ocean.

Dude... youre really arguing this point? They are getting what they can to stop flowing free into the water system. From what I read they put a tube in and cap the break off around the tube... sure ill bet some still barely leaks... but it is way better than just free flowing and it IS a method that BP is taking to help minimize the impact on the wildlife. Sure it also looks like they are trying to keep what oil they can to profit off of instead of letting it flow out in the ocean...

It really depends on how you look at your half full/empty glass... but my point is... what they are doing is in fact helping save what wildlife they can.

Now after all that... id like to say... FUCK BP and the nations dependency on oil...

Happy now?

more info re: the plumes:::

While they have detected the plumes and their effects with several types of instruments, the researchers are still not sure about their density, nor do they have a very good fix on the dimensions.

Given their size, the plumes cannot possibly be made of pure oil, but more likely consist of fine droplets of oil suspended in a far greater quantity of water, Dr. Joye said. She added that in places, at least, the plumes might be the consistency of a thin salad dressing.

Dr. Joye is serving as a coordinator of the mission from her laboratory in Athens, Ga. Researchers from the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi are aboard the boat taking samples and running instruments.

Dr. Joye said the findings about declining oxygen levels were especially worrisome, since oxygen is so slow to move from the surface of the ocean to the bottom. She suspects that oil-eating bacteria are consuming the oxygen at a feverish clip as they work to break down the plumes.

While the oxygen depletion so far is not enough to kill off sea life, the possibility looms that oxygen levels could fall so low as to create large dead zones, especially at the seafloor. “That’s the big worry,” said Ray Highsmith, head of the Mississippi center that sponsored the mission, known as the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology.

No.

http://i39.tinypic.com/dpva0l.jpg

http://i44.tinypic.com/29nur8z.jpg

fuck them and their archaic system.

the current news suggests that those turtles that they found washed up on shore died as a result of fishermen adjusting their nets beyond legal limits to catch more fish ASAP in reaction to the oil spill.

i am not saying that is fact, but the fact is there is a lot we do not know and the media, as usual, is not to be trusted.

Yeah. Who needs oceans, anyway!

Im not justifying their actions or methods... All i was doing was pointing out that you were being a little biased in thinking they are only siphoning their oil out of the ocean for profit and profit alone...

I am disgusted too... But being disgusted dosnt help that pelican and turtle now does it...

Back to my pixels...