Ponce
16th May 2010, 03:52 AM
Crap.....under the ocean snake oil heading towards Florida and Cuba.
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Scientists: Underwater plume of oil headed out to sea
Updated 13h 12m ago.
By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
NEW ORLEANS — The underwater plume of oil billowing from a renegade wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico is headed away from the coast and back out to sea, according to federally-funded scientists studying the spill.
In the first on-site measurements of the oil spreading below the surface, researchers found the plume of crude stretches 15 to 20 miles southwest from the site of the damaged wellhead and is about 5 miles wide, said Vernon Asper, a University of Southern Mississippi marine scientist leading the research.
The plume is compact, much thicker than the lighter remnants reaching the surface and suspended in about 3,000 feet of ocean, he said. A deepwater current is dragging it out to sea. The underwater oil cloud is not connected to the surface slick — now the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.
"This [underwater] plume is some of the heavier products of the oil that won't reach the surface," Asper said in a radio-telephone interview from aboard the R/V Pelican, a 116-foot research ship at the site of the spill. "We think this oil is going to stay down there. It doesn't look like it's coming to the surface."
The research trip was coordinated by the Mississippi-based National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency leading the scientific analysis of the clean-up effort. The crew of the Pelican mapped out the underwater plume using a combination of different underwater technologies, including light sensors and an electronic sensor that measures oxygen in the water, Asper said. They also collected water samples to be analyzed in labs when they return to dock next week, he said.
Meanwhile, engineers with British energy giant BP, who is leading the clean-up effort, struggled with their latest attempt to cap the well, spewing an estimated 210,000 gallons a day into the Gulf. Workers were not able to connect a 6-inch pipe into the 21-inch riser leaking most of the oil on their first attempt and had to retrieve the pipe back to a surface vessel, said Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production.
The pipe is back on the seafloor and engineers planned to reattempt the process Saturday night, he said. A week ago, BP also failed in an attempt to capture the leak using a 40-foot-tall, 100-ton containment box. A relief well being drilled nearby is still several months away.
"The challenge here is working in 5,000 feet of water," Suttles said.
Work crews have been working round-the-clock to cap the well and contain the widening spill since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank to the seabed around 50 miles off Louisiana's coast last month, killing 11 crewmembers and sparking an ecological emergency in the Gulf.
President Obama on Friday issued his harshest criticism yet of the oil drillers and executives, condemning the "ridiculous spectacle" of oil executives shifting blame in congressional hearings and denounced a "cozy relationship" between the companies and the federal government.
"I will not tolerate more finger-pointing or irresponsibility," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden, flanked by members of his Cabinet. "The system failed, and it failed badly. And for that, there is enough responsibility to go around. And all parties should be willing to accept it."
The failed attempts at capping the wellhead place the controversial use of chemical dispersants at the forefront of BP's strategy to try to tame the gushing oil. Last week, federal regulators approved the use of dispersants at the damaged wellhead nearly a mile underwater, Suttles said. The dispersants break up the oil into smaller molecules and keep it underwater, where bacteria eat them up, he said.
The company has already dropped more than 560,000 gallons of dispersants on the surface slick and 28,700 gallons at the subsea wellhead, BP spokesman John Crabtree said.
The use of chemical dispersants at such depths has been controversial because it's never been used at such depths. Dispersants injected into the spewing wellhead is likely keeping the underwater plume suspended in 3,000 feet of water, said Mandy Joye, a marine sciences professor at the University of Georgia.
That keeps the oil from bubbling to the surface and potentially reaching fragile coastal marshes. But it's also creating a massive, toxic plume of oxygen-less oily water stretching through the deeper reaches of the Gulf of Mexico, Joye said.
"Anything that requires oxygen will not be able to survive in that water," she said. "The food web is going to change. You could stymie the entire production level of the Gulf of Mexico. That's a very real possibility."
The underwater plume is about 124 miles from the Loop Current, a large, rapidly-moving current that could swing the oil cloud east toward Florida and Cuba, said Stephan Howden, an oceanographer at the University of Southern Mississippi. The Loop Current could also drag the plume up into shallower water, potentially impacting coral reefs and fisheries near Florida's coast, Howden said.
The underwater plume, invisible to satellite imagery or aerial photographs, can also get stirred up and tossed into shallower waters if a hurricane passes over it, Joye said. The Atlantic hurricane season, which includes the Gulf, starts June 1.
"It is a good thing the oil is not damaging the coast line," Joye said. "But to say everything is fine because it's not hitting the coast is missing a very important part of this equation."
===============================================
Scientists: Underwater plume of oil headed out to sea
Updated 13h 12m ago.
By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
NEW ORLEANS — The underwater plume of oil billowing from a renegade wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico is headed away from the coast and back out to sea, according to federally-funded scientists studying the spill.
In the first on-site measurements of the oil spreading below the surface, researchers found the plume of crude stretches 15 to 20 miles southwest from the site of the damaged wellhead and is about 5 miles wide, said Vernon Asper, a University of Southern Mississippi marine scientist leading the research.
The plume is compact, much thicker than the lighter remnants reaching the surface and suspended in about 3,000 feet of ocean, he said. A deepwater current is dragging it out to sea. The underwater oil cloud is not connected to the surface slick — now the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.
"This [underwater] plume is some of the heavier products of the oil that won't reach the surface," Asper said in a radio-telephone interview from aboard the R/V Pelican, a 116-foot research ship at the site of the spill. "We think this oil is going to stay down there. It doesn't look like it's coming to the surface."
The research trip was coordinated by the Mississippi-based National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency leading the scientific analysis of the clean-up effort. The crew of the Pelican mapped out the underwater plume using a combination of different underwater technologies, including light sensors and an electronic sensor that measures oxygen in the water, Asper said. They also collected water samples to be analyzed in labs when they return to dock next week, he said.
Meanwhile, engineers with British energy giant BP, who is leading the clean-up effort, struggled with their latest attempt to cap the well, spewing an estimated 210,000 gallons a day into the Gulf. Workers were not able to connect a 6-inch pipe into the 21-inch riser leaking most of the oil on their first attempt and had to retrieve the pipe back to a surface vessel, said Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production.
The pipe is back on the seafloor and engineers planned to reattempt the process Saturday night, he said. A week ago, BP also failed in an attempt to capture the leak using a 40-foot-tall, 100-ton containment box. A relief well being drilled nearby is still several months away.
"The challenge here is working in 5,000 feet of water," Suttles said.
Work crews have been working round-the-clock to cap the well and contain the widening spill since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank to the seabed around 50 miles off Louisiana's coast last month, killing 11 crewmembers and sparking an ecological emergency in the Gulf.
President Obama on Friday issued his harshest criticism yet of the oil drillers and executives, condemning the "ridiculous spectacle" of oil executives shifting blame in congressional hearings and denounced a "cozy relationship" between the companies and the federal government.
"I will not tolerate more finger-pointing or irresponsibility," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden, flanked by members of his Cabinet. "The system failed, and it failed badly. And for that, there is enough responsibility to go around. And all parties should be willing to accept it."
The failed attempts at capping the wellhead place the controversial use of chemical dispersants at the forefront of BP's strategy to try to tame the gushing oil. Last week, federal regulators approved the use of dispersants at the damaged wellhead nearly a mile underwater, Suttles said. The dispersants break up the oil into smaller molecules and keep it underwater, where bacteria eat them up, he said.
The company has already dropped more than 560,000 gallons of dispersants on the surface slick and 28,700 gallons at the subsea wellhead, BP spokesman John Crabtree said.
The use of chemical dispersants at such depths has been controversial because it's never been used at such depths. Dispersants injected into the spewing wellhead is likely keeping the underwater plume suspended in 3,000 feet of water, said Mandy Joye, a marine sciences professor at the University of Georgia.
That keeps the oil from bubbling to the surface and potentially reaching fragile coastal marshes. But it's also creating a massive, toxic plume of oxygen-less oily water stretching through the deeper reaches of the Gulf of Mexico, Joye said.
"Anything that requires oxygen will not be able to survive in that water," she said. "The food web is going to change. You could stymie the entire production level of the Gulf of Mexico. That's a very real possibility."
The underwater plume is about 124 miles from the Loop Current, a large, rapidly-moving current that could swing the oil cloud east toward Florida and Cuba, said Stephan Howden, an oceanographer at the University of Southern Mississippi. The Loop Current could also drag the plume up into shallower water, potentially impacting coral reefs and fisheries near Florida's coast, Howden said.
The underwater plume, invisible to satellite imagery or aerial photographs, can also get stirred up and tossed into shallower waters if a hurricane passes over it, Joye said. The Atlantic hurricane season, which includes the Gulf, starts June 1.
"It is a good thing the oil is not damaging the coast line," Joye said. "But to say everything is fine because it's not hitting the coast is missing a very important part of this equation."