Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Texas A&M: Methane Levels in Gulf of Mexico Up to 100,000 X Normal
Uncoverage.net ^ | June 24, 2010 | by Jane Jamison

Posted on 07/14/2010 2:37:29 AM PDT by combat_boots

Last week, scientists from a University of Georgia weighed in with their findings on methane gas in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Yesterday, more opinions from other experts were published. Texas A&M University has also had a team on the Gulf and also finds exceptionally high methane levels in the water. Reuters: Texas A&M University oceanography professor John Kessler, just back from a 10-day research expedition near the BP Plc oil spill in the gulf, says methane gas levels in some areas are “astonishingly high.”

Kessler’s crew took measurements of both surface and deep water within a 5-mile (8 kilometer) radius of BP’s broken wellhead.

“There is an incredible amount of methane in there,” Kessler told reporters in a telephone briefing.

In some areas, the crew of 12 scientists found concentrations that were 100,000 times higher than normal.

(Excerpt) Read more at uncoverage.net ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption
KEYWORDS: deepwaterhorizon; gulf; methane; oilspill; totalitarianism
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-103 next last
To: Rebelbase

I swam in the GOM two weeks ago in Rockport, Texas with my 4 yr old son. It was quite nice.


61 posted on 07/14/2010 6:42:22 AM PDT by Republic of Texas (Socialism Always Fails)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver

Have you ever been to an Ocean?


62 posted on 07/14/2010 6:45:31 AM PDT by Republic of Texas (Socialism Always Fails)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: Republic of Texas

“Have you ever been to an Ocean?”

My screenname is driftdiver and you ask that question?? Your credibility just went out the window.


63 posted on 07/14/2010 6:47:14 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver

“Minimizing the damage which is being done by this spill is naive at best”

Oh my GOD we are all gonna DIE...!

EVERY DROP of oil that has spilled out of the leak to date would fit into a cube of space just 330 feet by 330 feet by 330 feet, barely bigger than a football field tall by a football field wide by a football field high. This is a pin head size problem in two side by side olympic pools.

(75,000 barrels per day X 42 gallons per barrel X 85 days divided by 7.5 gallons per cube foot = 35,700,000 cubic feet. A cube 330 feet by 330 feet by 330 feet has 35,937,000 cubic feet.) ......$@(#*#*


64 posted on 07/14/2010 6:49:03 AM PDT by macquire
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver

We have a lot of freeprs with their heads in the sand and they are going to keep them there with hostility.


65 posted on 07/14/2010 6:51:17 AM PDT by valkyry1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver

Your screenname? Oh well, excuse me, I didn’t realize that a screenname carried such weight. You know you just don’t pick those out of thin air! If you are such an expert, then you know that the Ocean is constantly cleaning itself. They’re called “currents”.

BTW, my screenname is Republic of Texas but that doesn’t make me Sam Houston.


66 posted on 07/14/2010 6:51:38 AM PDT by Republic of Texas (Socialism Always Fails)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: macquire

Unfortunately its not all in one great big cube. Its spread over hundreds of miles of beach, wetlands, and water surface.

But you’re the expert. This isn’t a problem, just let it keep spewing. no harm no foul.


67 posted on 07/14/2010 6:55:41 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: Republic of Texas

Well you could have admitted your error and apologized, so much for civility.

Currents move things, they don’t clean things up. So the oil that is in one place gets moved until it hits something it sticks to. Like a beach, coral, animals, boats, wetlands.

And yes drift diving (aka driftdiver) is a form of scuba diving. Dift diving is where the scuba diver jumps off into the OCEAN and floats (aka drift) with the CURRENT.

I like it because I really enjoy looking at all the things this oil is killing.


68 posted on 07/14/2010 6:59:22 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 66 | View Replies]

To: Rebelbase

Have you ?


69 posted on 07/14/2010 7:01:47 AM PDT by al baby (Hi Mom sarc ;))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: valkyry1

“We have a lot of freeprs with their heads in the sand and they are going to keep them there with hostility.”

Yeah, I just cannot understand that attitude. The economies of the gulf states are being hit very hard. The spill is being used by the administration to further their marxist agenda. One of the biggest companies in the world is discussing bankruptcy because of the spill. Thousands of fish, birds and other wildlife have been killed.

But its really no big deal?


70 posted on 07/14/2010 7:03:12 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 65 | View Replies]

To: al baby

Too far away. I was just checking for the source of methane.


71 posted on 07/14/2010 7:04:05 AM PDT by Rebelbase (Political correctness in America today is a Rip Van Winkle acid trip.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver

The concise Brittanica Encyclopedia estimates the surface of the Gulf of Mexico to be 1,550,000 km2 that is 1,550,000,000,000 m2 e maximum depth of the Gulf is 5203 m.
The average depth is somwhere between 0 and that value. I guess 1/4 the maximum depth (because it gave me an almost round number) of 1300 m. Multiplying 1,550,000,000,000 m2 x 1300m = 2.015 x 10 E 15 m3 or 5.3 X 10 E 17 USGallons (give or take 1223gallons) or about 650 Quadrillion gallons (650,000,000,000,000,000). The leak so far is 75,000 X 42 X 85 = 267,750,000 gallons or said another way, just 2.7 parts per 6,500,000,000 (six point five BILLION) .....Oil isn’t considered toxic until it reaches 10 parts per million.


72 posted on 07/14/2010 7:06:37 AM PDT by macquire
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 67 | View Replies]

To: Rebelbase

ping Evening star


73 posted on 07/14/2010 7:07:41 AM PDT by al baby (Hi Mom sarc ;))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 71 | View Replies]

So, there is an incredible amount of water out there just in a square mile that’s a half-a-mile deep, unbelievable, billions and billions and billions of gallons of water, and so I am not terribly concerned. I think it is something we need to look at, but the dissolved oxygen levels so far taken from a number of cruises have not found alarmingly low levels of D.O. at depth.

BLITZER: David Kessler, I don’t know if you him. He is a professor at Texas A&M University. He is quoted as saying this. And I will put it up on the screen.

“This is most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history.”

You think he is right?

OVERTON: He may know a lot more about that than I do. I’m not a methane expert, but there is certainly an awful lot of carbon going into the water column. There’s no question about it. There is just an awful lot of water out there.

And so it sounds like to me it is a bit of an overstatement.

BLITZER: What would the methane potentially do if it were to continue to come up in huge numbers to sea life, for example?

OVERTON: Well, it is not very toxic. What it does is bacteria will degrade the methane and use up oxygen in the degradation, so — and this is what I was referring to when you — when we measure the amount of dissolved oxygen at depth.

And, so far, those measurements have not showed significant lowering of the dissolved oxygen, maybe 10, 20, 30 percent, but not down to zero, so most calculations show that it is probably not going to be reduced to zero. You have to have a D.O. concentration, it is three or four or five parts per million and at depths, and it would have to go near zero to produce dead zones.

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1006/18/sitroom.02.html

74 posted on 07/14/2010 7:15:03 AM PDT by anglian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver
So oil doesn't dissipate or evaporate? That's news. My only point is that this is a terrible event, fraught with mistakes on the part of BP and the government. It's just not the end of the world or even the GOM. The ocean does clean itself up, because I don't think God would design a system where oil or methane seeped into the ocean and it wasn't cleaned up. That has only been happening for billions of years.

When people on our side freak out and say it will never be cleaned up, or it will take 100 years, they are playing into the hands of the left. That argument will be used against us in the future, just as it is now with the Global Warming fraud.

My main point of contention is with the media. If this were a Republican Administration, they would be going nuts. Now you can't even take pictures. Eventually the left is going to use quotes like yours to go after BP. By that I mean drive them out of business or take them over and that won't help one single Person or Dolphin or Oyster on the planet. They are already using this to kill the oil industry, and that will hurt the economy and the people of the Gulf region more than this accident ever will. Play into their hands if you like, I won't do it.

75 posted on 07/14/2010 7:22:26 AM PDT by Republic of Texas (Socialism Always Fails)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: macquire
Oil isn’t considered toxic until it reaches 10 parts per million.

Well I'm not an expert but these look toxic to me.


76 posted on 07/14/2010 7:30:17 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: Republic of Texas

‘When people on our side freak out and say it will never be cleaned up, or it will take 100 years, they are playing into the hands of the left. “

No, they are playing on the side of being rational. Minimizing the spill and its effects is helping Obama further his marxist agenda.

This spill and the inept response is his fault.


77 posted on 07/14/2010 7:32:25 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 75 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver

//Thousands of fish, birds and other wildlife have been killed//

Thousands? Talk millions, everything the oil/dispersant has touched is dead and gone, and it is in a 3 dimensional column in the Gulf.

The only way the Gulf can recover is if somehow the Texas coast is not hit to hard. I have been down to port Lavaca and the Whooping Crane has made a comeback there. You never seen a bird so big!! I would hate to see them go away.


78 posted on 07/14/2010 7:33:37 AM PDT by valkyry1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: valkyry1

“You never seen a bird so big!! ‘

We have herons that fly over our house every morning. hearing their calls and whoosh of their wings is cool. They stand about 4 feet tall as they walk through your lawn looking for something to eat.


79 posted on 07/14/2010 7:36:14 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 78 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver
This spill and the inept response is his fault.

I could not agree more, but you do know the left will use comments out of context? He should be vilified daily over this thing but it will never happen, however one day a Republican will be in charge again and our comments about 100 year cleanups will be used to kill the oil industry. Actually that is happening right now.

80 posted on 07/14/2010 7:36:56 AM PDT by Republic of Texas (Socialism Always Fails)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 77 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-103 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson