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 ...
A lot, and you would need a constant supply. They can only tread water for so long.
Where did this come from?
Concentrated Uranium is found in Pitchblende
and is a naturally present material in some ores
Depleted Uranium U-238 is a product of Isotope separation
I hope you arn’t talking about Tritiated Methane
or Carbon-14 Methane
These would be separate subjects
Need more Caffeine this morning
To begin with, Methane Hydrate is a crystal form of Methane that occurs naturally on the sea floor in MUCH higher levels than this spill is generating. Especially in the Gulf. And this occurrence has been going on for thousands of years. There is a constant flow of methane, in huge volumes, being passed into the water on a day by day basis before oil was ever discovered.
As far as this spill effecting the marine life, fishing etc, the enviro-Nazi’s said the same thing about the Exxon Valdez accident. They claimed that Prince William Sound was forever destroyed and ruined and that the fishing industry would NEVER recover. The hype was intensive.
I had one of my very best fishing years (herring) the very next year (1990) about 1/2 mile from Bligh Reef. In fact, every season after that, the area close to the reef was the best place to fish. And PWS did recover fully in mere months and has ever since.
But I do agree that someone is naive here, especially the ones who make the most absolute drastic claims that “all is forever ruined”.
Modified harrows, drills, rototillers? Harvest only the smaller clams like they do now.
“There is a constant flow of methane, in huge volumes, being passed into the water on a day by day basis before oil was ever discovered.”
So you’re saying there is no difference in the amount of methane being released before the spill and now?
“As far as this spill effecting the marine life, fishing etc, the enviro-Nazi’s said the same thing about the Exxon Valdez accident.”
Fishing in the gulf was already in rough shape. Its not just the enviro-nazi’s that are saying there is a problem. Its the people who have made their living off the fishing for generations.
Two differences between PWS and the gulf. 1) PWS was a surface spill and not a deep water spill. 2) PWS was much much smaller.
I’ve never said “all is forever ruined”, I said it would take 50-100 years for nature to clean it up.
Well hey then there’s no reason to worry. Sure tourism is down 50%, fishing is closed in 1/3 of the gulf. Century old companies have closed down.
Its all good, just get a rototiller and get some oysters!
(Face in hands, elbows on desk...now to the keyboard). This is news to these professors?
Don’t blame me, see my tagline.
I thought you were talking about the oil under the surface of the sand or mud where the shellfish live.
As far as methane amounts in the Gulf due to Methane Hydrate, the amounts that are being time released into the water, fully dwarf the overall amounts that this well has released or ever will release.
Do some research into this yourself. As far as allowing the generations of ignorant fisherman who have an axe to grind over this, to make assessments into how long the damage will last, like the Exxon Valdez, these same fisherman were handsomely awarded and rewarded for their losses. But in reality, their fishing future was never better.
Mainly because the Oceans have a remarkable ability to adapt and recover. The bio-organisms that exist and thrive off of oil, will increase in proportion to the volume and the clean up will be rapid. Far more so than what the human race is capable of.
I know what you mean. I saw a video clip someplace of university researchers walking along a beach, looking shocked and practically throwing up their hands.
Amazing that they would be clinical in such situations. At least I think so.
I wonder if any of them have seen the stacks of dead dolphins, areas of dead fish, turtles, birds. People on here have talked about the smell of death in the air down there.
But it’s felony to photograph it. Gee, Katrina was a gold mine for them.......
“I thought you were talking about the oil under the surface of the sand or mud where the shellfish live.”
thats one of the areas of concern. I fail to see how that oil will disperse in 2-3 years without some kind of manual intervention.
Cleaning up that sand for the hundreds of miles of affected coastline is a monumental challenge.
“As far as methane amounts in the Gulf due to Methane Hydrate, the amounts that are being time released into the water, fully dwarf the overall amounts that this well has released or ever will release.”
So this spill releases massive amounts of methane, and yet the overall amount of methane decreases?
If their claim is true the air they tested was 17% methane. That’s above the upper explosive limit of 15%, so they missed dying in an explosion.
But why didn’t they suffocate? Something stinks here, and it’s not the methane.
That sounds like a job for The EPA. They're just sitting around picking their noses and looking at porn anyway.
They need to send every employee of that worthless agency down there with hand tools and have them earn their oversized paychecks.
You don’t listen very well do you.
Perhaps, in any case 50-100 yrs does fall under the definition of “eventually”
My case is it would be more like 2 yrs since the oil is of a finer grade and will evaporate far more quickly than the heavier crude
I thought it was the dept of interior that looked at porn. the EPA is too busy inventing new regulations making breathing illegal.
No I listen fine. You said there is a huge amount of methane released naturally. Your inference was that the spill amount didn’t have an impact.
I disagree with you.
Replacements from unaffected areas will rapidly occupy the ecological niches by in-migration. Evidently, the total unaffected population is so large relative to the affected one that such in-migration decrease from the "supplying" population is lost in the statistics of natural population variability. This is one of the main reasons the EPA decided to allow the dispersant use. "In-migration" is obviously much faster offshore than on.
"Shellfish populations have been decimated. The oil has contaminated the sand surroudning their habitat. How will that subsurface oil evaporate or be cleaned out of the shellfish that have survived?"
If the oil is subsurface (below the soil/sea interface), then it can't affect the recovering shellfish, now can it?? And the oil will be cleaned out of the surviving shellfish by the same detoxification mechanism(s) that they use to handle natural oil at low levels.
Instead of making asinine comments, why don't you go and READ the actual science in the study.
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