Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Below the Gulf's Surface

An anonymous reader sends in a NY Times article about the spread of oil from the BP gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Quoting: "Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide, and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given. ... The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes. Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. ... [Scientists on the Pelican mission] suspect the heavy use of chemical dispersants, which BP has injected into the stream of oil emerging from the well, may have broken the oil up into droplets too small to rise rapidly. ... Dr. Joye said the findings about declining oxygen levels were especially worrisome, since oxygen is so slow to move from the surface of the ocean to the bottom. She suspects that oil-eating bacteria are consuming the oxygen at a feverish clip as they work to break down the plumes."

Comments

... Hear no evil. See no evil.

[fahrbot-bot]

From TFA:

Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.

The government has "top men" working on this. Who? "Top men".
Besides, it's silly to think there could be oil elsewhere than the surface.

BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.

"The answer is no to that," a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. "We're not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It's not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort."

Yes, there's no value (to us) in trying to determine exactly how badly we've screwed things... It's not like a better estimate would be useful in calculating a level of effort for the cleanup, possibly quantity of cleanup materials, or potential ocean chemistry changes.

Re:Help me understand oil dispersants

[Anonymous Coward]

What you fail to take into account is that natural seepage and massive release are on such opposite sides of the spectrum that "it happens naturally" is not going to make anyone but yourself feel better about this spill.

Happens naturally: a woman's period.
Massive release: getting shot.

Get the point now?

Re:We should call BP big polluter now!

[Lars T.]

He also was the prime recipient of millions of dollars from BP. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36783.html The pattern is more than a bit disturbing.

By millions you mean $71,051. Frankly, the 3.5 million dollars over 20 years BP has spend is peanuts, and only make it to 106 on the Heavy Hitters List. But it is unusual that he appears on the top of the list of recipients of BP as well as #2 of the Exxon list, when both companies favour Republicans. But then, even combined they wouldn't be among Obama's Top Contributors

Re:Where's Sarah Palin

[Sir_Lewk]

There is no "extreme left" in the US just like there is no "Left", "Right", "Extreme Right", or "Central".

All of these terms are made up to make us think that we still have a choice. To make us think that this isn't for all intents and purposes a one party system.