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Gulf Oil Spill Nearing Loop Current
An anonymous reader writes "Per The Weather Channel's tropical expert Dr. Richard Knabb, 'based on satellite images, model simulations, and on-site research vessel reports, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the oil slick at the surface is very near or partially in the Loop Current. The Loop Current is responsible in the first place for extending that stream of oil off to the southeast in satellite imagery. With its proximity to the northern edge of the Loop Current it may be only a matter of weeks or even days before the ocean surface oil is transported toward the Florida Keys and southeast Florida.'" Other experts are a little more cautious: "We know the oil has not entered the Loop Current," Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry said at a news conference Monday afternoon. "A leading edge sheen is getting close to it, but it has not entered the Loop Current. The larger volume of oil is several miles from the Loop Current."
I think this story is a little old now, oil is already at Key West.
Coast Guard: Tar Balls Found Off Key West, Fla.
POSTED: Monday, May 17, 2010
UPDATED: 11:26 pm EDT May 17, 2010
KEY WEST, Fla. -- The U.S. Coast Guard says 20 tar balls have been found off Key West, Fla., but the agency stopped short of saying whether they came from a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Some 5 million gallons of crude has spewed into the Gulf and tar balls have been washing ashore in several states along the coast.
Scientists are worried that oil is getting caught in a major ocean current that could carry it through the Florida Keys and up the East Coast.
The Coast Guard says the Florida Park Service found the tar balls on Monday during a shoreline survey. The balls were 3-to-8 inches in diameter.
Coast Guard Lt. Anna K. Dixon said no one at the station in Key West was qualified to determine where the tar balls originated. They have been sent to a lab for analysis.
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
I think that it would cause the rock around the bore to fracture, slide, and block the bore. This has been done by the USSR successfully. Google "Petrocalamity".
If you have a google account, check out this link. It adds the ArcGIS Server - Message in a Bottle applet to your google maps. Click the map and watch the "bottle" travel the path of the streamlines. Do it a couple times around the area of the oil spill and get a rough idea of the possible trajectories. Yes there are significant differences between an oil slick on top of the water and a glass bottle, but I have yet to find anywhere else public-ish facing where you can dynamically plot stream line points for free. Map experts/enthusiast?
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Rachel Maddow has shown an interview named BP's haste lays waste to Gulf waters with a whistleblower from BP who explained that just a little before the disaster a BP manager told Transocean manager to do the work of putting in the corks into the well faster, so that the pumping of oil could be done faster. Aparently the Transocean manager was against it and they had an argument and BP won.
So it's mostly BP's fault, but I think still Transocean should not have complied with this clear violation of the procedure.
You can't handle the truth.