Posted on 05/14/2010 3:44:36 AM PDT by tobyhill
For a spill now nearly half the size of Exxon Valdez, the oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster is pretty hard to pin down.
Satellite images show most of an estimated 4.6 million gallons of oil has pooled in a floating, shape-shifting blob off the Louisiana coast. Some has reached shore as a thin sheen, and gooey bits have washed up as far away as Alabama. But the spill is 23 days old since the Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and killed 11 workers, and the thickest stuff hasn't shown up on the coast.
So, where's the oil? Where's it going to end up?
Government scientists and others tracking the spill say much of the oil is lurking just below the surface. But there seems to be no consensus on whether it will arrive in black waves, mostly dissipate into the massive Gulf or gradually settle to the ocean floor, where it could seep into the ecosystem for years.
When it comes to deepwater spills, even top experts rely on some guesswork..............
Of that recovered mixture, at least 10 percent is oil, BP and NOAA said. Smaller amounts of oil also have been collected after washing ashore, and crews have burned a negligible quantity off the surface
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Oil floats, so how is it going to settle to the ocean floor?
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Where's the beef?
It’s very deep, so as it rises it separates into different components, some of which diffuse into the atmosphere, some of which float (but very widely dissipated due to mixing with all that water), and some of which sink (tar). At least I think that’s what they’re saying. So, a deep-water spill where it travels a mile to the surface is very different from a situation where it spills directly onto the surface.
Won't it be a hoot to watch the story disappear into a black hole when the environmental Armageddon fails to materialise? The Democrats will still rail against off-shore drilling, but everyone will know that nothing really bad happened.
At least, that's how I hope it all turns out.
I watched a Prof. from Texas A & M on Fox, another professor from Miss. said to leave it alone, the oil is an organic material and nature will take care of itself. Shep even asked him if the hay would work. He said the hay does work in a smaller area. The Texas guy said that oil is mostly carbon and once it hits the surface, the toxic chemicals will evaporate almost immediately.
Instead of blowing the hay out in the gulf, why don’t they have the shrimp boats and other fishing boats set up the hay barriers closer to shore where they can control the oil before it gets inland, especially near the marshes? I would think that would be better than chemicals.
dilution is the solution for pollution
Eventually the Natural Gas pressure will all be released then natural elements will seal the pipe.
Exactly! It’s been down there for years now and it’s returning to its natural place.
Me too. It’s what we use to call a blow out gusher, not a “spill”.
My take on this comes from growing up on a dairy farm. Over time, raw milk sours, ferments and turns into a cheese and you can still consume it. My mother kept a jar of leftover milk on the counter all the time. I dont know how many sour milk pancakes I have eaten that have contained bits of this “cheese” that didnt get mixed in nor were fully cooked. Pastuerized milk on the other hand would just go bad. She would never put any of that in the jar. What is leaking is not refined oil that we think of like the motor oil we put in our cars.
The oceans heal themselves. Democrats create crises (is that the plural?).
Wasn’t the Exxon Valdez refined oil? So it was thick. This oil is a natural substance. Aren’t there naturally occurring oil leaks all the time?
Imagine what blood looks like when a cut finger, for example, is under water. The blood diffuses so quickly that the entire body of water that the bleeding is in begins to appear to be bloody. This gusher in the Gulf is sending material into a massive body of water. No one knows how many gallons or barrels of actual oil are rising out of the earth at that spot.
There just lying again.
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