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.
Kesslers crew took measurements of both surface and deep water within a 5-mile (8 kilometer) radius of BPs 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 ...
I swam in the GOM two weeks ago in Rockport, Texas with my 4 yr old son. It was quite nice.
Have you ever been to an Ocean?
“Have you ever been to an Ocean?”
My screenname is driftdiver and you ask that question?? Your credibility just went out the window.
“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.) ......$@(#*#*
We have a lot of freeprs with their heads in the sand and they are going to keep them there with hostility.
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.
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.
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.
Have you ?
“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?
Too far away. I was just checking for the source of methane.
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.
ping Evening star
BLITZER: David Kessler, I dont 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. Im not a methane expert, but there is certainly an awful lot of carbon going into the water column. Theres 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
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.
Well I'm not an expert but these look toxic to me.
‘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.
//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.
“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.
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.
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