Location of Spilled Oil From 2010 Deepwater Horizon Event Found

Chipmunk100 writes: A study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (abstract) claims to have identified the location of two million barrels of submerged oil thought to be trapped in the deep ocean following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. By analyzing data from more than 3,000 samples collected at 534 locations over 12 expeditions, they identified a 1,250-square-mile patch of the deep sea floor upon which 2 to 16 percent of the discharged oil was deposited. The fallout of oil to the sea floor created thin deposits most intensive to the southwest of the Macondo well. The oil was most concentrated within the top half inch of the sea floor and was patchy even at the scale of a few feet."

Comments

No Worries

[MightyMartian]

According to leading chiropractors, oil is not only not harmful to marine environments, but is in fact highly beneficial! In fact, we should be dumping millions of barrels every year into the Gulf of Mexico, and should pay back all the money BP has to pay out back to them at one trillion percent interest!

Tune in next week, when I explain how the Koch Brothers are in fact the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

Re:No Worries

[mindwhip]

This is also confirmed by homoeopaths who also add that adding oil to marine environments will cure cancer in anyone that lives between 10k and 100k from the sea and will give you more get up and go!

Re:No Worries

[93 Escort Wagon]

You joke, but the equivalent of a few million barrels of oil enters the gulf of Mexico every year through naturally-occuring seeps.

Re:No Worries

[Vellmont]

Yup, just like adding up all the blood Americans lose to papercuts ever year. Assume 1 drop of blood is lost per papercut, or .06 ml. A highly conservative guess is 1/1000 americans get papercuts in a year. (300,000,000/1000)*.06=18 liters of blood. So obviously it wouldn't hurt you if you suddenly lost 18 liters of blood, since that amount is lost in minor little papercuts every year.

Scale matters, and concentrating a huge amount of oil, (or in the above example blood loss) makes a big difference.

Re:No Worries

[PopeRatzo]

This is also confirmed by homoeopaths

This reminds me, apropos of nothing and completely offtopic (sort of): I walk the dog early in the morning, before 6am while listening to the news on my portable radio. Due to some strange meteorological phenomenon, I am able to pick up a 500watt station out of an exurb that's 20 miles away, and carries Alex Jones' show (the station calls itself, "Freedom Radio").

So anyway, as you can imagine, the big story the past week has been Ebola and how it's no coincidence that Ebola is from Africa and the President is from Africa. That Ebola is being used to take away our freedoms (but not "Freedom Radio" for some reason).

The "expert" that Alex Jones has on every single morning is a naturopath from Arizona who has developed an "anti-viral" tonic made from colloidal silver and antioxidants ("equivalent to 10,000 blueberries!"). Of course, the 800 number is given throughout the show where for a limited time, with every order you get the doctor's book about the things "The Medical Industry Doesn't Want You To Know". Then they take calls from listeners, and just thinking about the voices of the people who call in makes the little hairs on my arm stand up. I mean, these people are skeered to death that weaponized Dominican kids are being shot up with Ebola by ISIS and sent to their little Utah town by the Democrat/Catholic cabal (I'm not making that up). One lady who said she was getting chemotherapy for cancer was crying on the phone she was so terrified that the Ebola was going to come to her home near Lake of the Ozarks and kill her because the chemo has lowered her immune system. Just sobbing. Saying that hearing Alex Jones and going to Infowars is the only thing keeping her going because she knows it's God's Truth. And Alex Jones and this witch doctor are telling her that if she orders some of this colloidal silver tonic with antioxidants it's going to build up her immune system, bless her heart. And I don't know if any of you have heard Alex Jones lately, but he now sounds exactly like Sam Kinison. The same accent, the same timbre, the exact same dynamic range from hoarse whisper to hoarse scream.

Alex Jones likes to say, after he's gotten people completely apoplectic with fear, that we shouldn't worry, because he's read the book (bible) and he knows how the story ends (victory for the righteous and all patriots), So nobody should worry. This exact sequence, with small variation, goes on every single morning. I hear that stuff and really feel sad. My wife tells me I shouldn't listen, even though it's not really having an effect on me besides making me sad (except for the hole I've started digging in the back yard). Ok, that last part is a joke, but really, the whole thing is about as unfunny as it gets.

I'm sorry that I threw all that in here as a reply to a mild joke, but hearing "homeopaths" and "cancer" made me think of it, and when I'm half in the bag I start making random associations from a need to unburden my sorrow at the state of humanity OK, I think the second period of the Blackhawks game is starting, so I've gotta go.

Re:No Worries

[dubbayu_d_40]

Drill baby drill?

Re:No Worries

[93 Escort Wagon]

Wow, my post was not meant to be political at all - just an interesting bit of data.

I learned about the natural seeps during the Deepwater Horizon disaster, actually. The natural seeps were complicating the job for the people whose job it was to stop the blown-out well.

Re:No Worries

[turp182]

Massive oil spills do increase wildlife viscosity:
http://www.theonion.com/articl...

"Today's wildlife revs at higher r.p.m.'s," Gedman said. "So when you're a gray seal swimming after a fish at over 200 strokes per minute, you can't afford any excess friction on your fins or tail. You need a quality motor oil to keep them as loose as possible."

Re:No Worries

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I think you just experienced backlash that stems from BP trying to use natural seeps to downplay the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon event. Living on the gulf coast I experienced first hand their spin doctors at work telling us about natural seeps and microbes that eat crude oil.

From the large tar balls washing up on our beaches, the residue that stayed in our marshes, the deaths of marine animals and the increased erosion from the death of grasses and trees along the waterline, only a fool would have fell for their bullshit.

I know that you only meant to bring up a natural phenomena but bringing up the topic of natural seeps in a story about the Deepwater Horizon does make you look like a shill for BP.

Re: No Worries

[umghhh]

only two? All of them should be sacrificed!

Re:No Worries

[ganjadude]

how can obama be the messiah AND the koch brothers??? I

Re:No Worries

[pnutjam]

I think someone should make a list of the advertisers for radio shows that purport to be about news. I'm sure there is some sort of correlation between the quality of products advertised and the average intelligence (or maybe education) of the listener.
While NPR doensn't have too many advertisers, you certainly don't hear the local rent to own place supporting their pledge drive.

Re:No Worries

[pnutjam]

Unless it's in your backyard, amiright?

Re:No Worries

[228e2]

weaponized Dominican kids are being shot up with Ebola by ISIS

Im amazed people can say that with a straight face. I had to pause 3 times because my eyes were rolling too hard to focus on the rest.

Re:No Worries

[MightyMartian]

"I know that you only meant to bring up a natural phenomena but bringing up the topic of natural seeps in a story about the Deepwater Horizon does make you look like a shill for BP."

Or a fucking moron.

Re:No Worries

[PopeRatzo]

I'm sure there is some sort of correlation between the quality of products advertised and the average intelligence (or maybe education) of the listener.

At some point, I stop blaming people for not being educated. I know, to us it seems like anyone should be able to hop online and get all the information they need to make sensible decisions, but when you start looking at the money and the power that is lined up to misinform and screw with peoples' heads, I just can't blame the victim.

For a whole lot of people, just making it through each day is such a challenge that there's just not a lot of energy or time left for edification. And for many others, they're just so beaten down that they're beyond having personal agency. These are the ones that get taken advantage of the worst, it seems.

Re:No Worries

[dotancohen]

Thank you, I will be using the analogy in the future! Where are my mod points when I need them?

For the Future

[pubwvj]

This will now get covered with silt and eventually become an oil reservoir for future generations a million years down the line. Bravo to BP for thinking so far ahead!

Re:For the Future

[Rei]

I question how much it's still "oil". Oil, outside of reservoirs, evolves. The volatiles slowly separate out; their ultimate fate is evaporation and photodegradation. The shortest chains are lost rapidly, but the longer they get, the longer they take to disappear. As volatiles are lost, the oil thickens. It eventually becomes tar, and then basically asphalt.

Re:Toad in Hat Removal Service

[CaptainDork]

Free Internet?

You're the reason we can't have nice things like a free Internet.

So that's where they went

[Tablizer]

Along with 30,000 pair-less socks

Summary or Extract?

[mythosaz]

Summary:

By analyzing data from more than 3,000 samples collected at 534 locations over 12 expeditions, they identified a 1,250-square-mile patch of the deep sea floor upon which 2 to 16 percent of the discharged oil was deposited.

Extract

we have identified a 3,200-km2 region around the Macondo Well contaminated by 1.8 ± 1.0 × 106 g of excess hopane. Based on spatial, chemical, oceanographic, and mass balance considerations, we calculate that this contamination represents 4–31% of the oil sequestered in the deep ocean.

Uh? At least 3200 km2 is about 1250 mi2. Is there a metric percentage conversion I'm unaware of?

Re:Summary or Extract?

[AK Marc]

" 2 to 16 percent of the discharged oil" != "4–31% of the oil sequestered in the deep ocean"

They are comparing slightly different things.

Re:Should be enough

[MightyMartian]

Seeps and uncontrolled weeks-long pressure-driven explosion of oil are not the same thing.

But I tell you what. Since arsenic occurs in small amounts in many water sources, I'm going to give you a gallon of it to drink, because your logic indicates that should be perfectly alright.

Think about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't anyone yet realized that oil is lighter than water and would not, therefore, sink to the bottom? I don't know what these geniuses really found.

Re:Think about it

[MightyMartian]

Evaporation and emulsification; evaporation leaves behind the heavier components of oil, emulsification creates a seawater-oil mixture that will sink.

There's also all the dispersants that BP flung at the leak, whose long-term effects probably still aren't fully understood.

Re:Think about it

[radtea]

Evaporation and emulsification; evaporation leaves behind the heavier components of oil, emulsification creates a seawater-oil mixture that will sink.

This is interesting, as there has been a huge fight in Canada about whether heavy oil sinks or floats (the answer seems to be: sinks, at least after some processing by sun/wind/flotsam/etc) but it has been presented to the public as if there was something special about that.

Whereas these results seem to indicate that a very substantial fraction of ordinary light crude sinks, so there is no particular additional danger posed by bitumen.

Re:Think about it

[TubeSteak]

evaporation leaves behind the heavier components of oil,

This is the portion of the barrel that ends up
1. getting burned in the engines of massive cargo ships
2. turned into asphalt
3. being used as feedstock for industrial chemistry

/Before asphalt, the tar leftover from the pyrolysis of coal was used for the same purposes.

Re:Should be enough

[hawguy]

But I tell you what. Since arsenic occurs in small amounts in many water sources, I'm going to give you a gallon of it to drink, because your logic indicates that should be perfectly alright.

Don't fall for this trap -- Arsenic is a solid at room temperature, if he gives you a gallon to drink, then it's around 1500 degF, and if you drink it, you'll die of massive burns before the Arsenic has a chance to kill you.

Where is the location? Where is the map?

[mabu]

As someone who was out there in the gulf documenting the effects of the spill, I'm disappointed that there is no actual details or data or maps indicating where actually the oil is located? Where are the details?

Re:FALSE!

[CaptainDork]

I'll join if you pay me.

nonsense

[rewindustry]

crude became what it is under very different conditions.

this will now get eaten and otherwide gradually decay into the biosphere.

laugh it up, people, zoom zoom zoom.

Re:Should be enough

[CrimsonAvenger]

Seeps and uncontrolled weeks-long pressure-driven explosion of oil are not the same thing.

Yeah, seeps are basically forever, but weeks-long pressure driven explosions are over in...weeks.

Re:Should be enough

[MightyMartian]

Take a lifetime intake of Vitamin A in a week and tell me how that goes.

Re:FALSE!

[PopeRatzo]

LAURA says you're just friends.

The Corexit "dispersant" BP used made it sink.

[Rujiel]

The dispersant Corexit was used to disperse the oil.. straight to the ocean floor.. The EPA told BP to stop using Corexit, which is carcinogenic and neurotoxic, and BP simply ignored that order--making potentially hundreds of thousands sick nearby. Oil is bad to touch, and Corexit is bad to touch, but the combination is a death-sludge. BP is a truly evil entity, in so many ways.

Downvoted by trolls for mentioning Corexit

[Rujiel]

How typical.

That argument is so dumb that my head hurts

[Rujiel]

Aside from the fact that you're comparing the supposed collective seeping of a liquid into the ocean with human bloodloss and a bunch of random numbers you pulled out of your bum, I'm sure the fishers that are out of business due to the incredible damage to the marine food web are very thrilled that you think oil contamination is harmless, let alone the effects of Corexit, the extremely toxic that BP wantonly sprayed all over the spill to help hide evidence of the crime.
http://www.theguardian.com/env...


So now there are several hundred meter-thick swaths of death sludge, 100 meters thick in some places..
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...
But a little oil's harmless, right guys?

Re:That argument is so dumb that my head hurts

[Vellmont]

You may want to re-read my post if you think I'm saying the oil is harmless. Or did you think a human being losing 18 liters of blood all at once is harmless?

Re:That argument is so dumb that my head hurts

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a bit of exaggeration. They found (back in 2010) layers in the water column that had tiny suspended particles/droplets of oil. It's not like it was a 100m-thick layer of mostly oil. It was traces. And it's unlikely there's any sign of that suspended oil left in the water column by now, years later. It's either been biologically degraded completely (a process already in progress at the time of that article) or settled onto the sea floor as a thin layer mixed with sediment.

As of that article the writers weren't even sure if the oil was from the Deepwater Horizon spill or from natural seeps in the Gulf.

Re:That argument is so dumb that my head hurts

[Rujiel]

You're comparing the hypothetical seepage of oil--which would in the ocean--to the loss of blood, which is rejuvenated. But I bet you guys felt really clever about the first troll account's unfunny set-up into your right-out-of-your-ass non-factoid. Cry more, BP trolls.

Re:Where is the location? Where is the map?

[Bartles]

Those are just minor details. You aren't supposed to ask questions of people who document the effect of humanity on the environment. They said it's down there. Believe them.

Re:Should be enough

[fustakrakich]

Mix it with *elderberry wine spiked with strychnine and "just a pinch of cyanide"*.

Prepare for the next oil spill

[myid]

The Wikipedia article on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill says, "The US Government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 million barrels ...." This article says, "The largest tankers trading today are comparable in size and can carry up to 2 million barrels of oil." So almost 5 million barrels were spilled in 2010, and the largest oil tanker can carry 2 million barrels.

The next time oil comes up uncontrolled from the sea floor, maybe this will work: Take an empty super-tanker, and cut a 100-foot hole in the top of it. Turn it upside-down, and lower it to the ocean floor. Lower it on top of the oil gusher, so that oil from the gusher will go into the tanker, displacing any air or water in the tanker. If the tanker fills with oil, pipe the surplus oil to another sunken tanker.

According to these images, the tops of tankers aren't completely flat. So the hole in the tanker won't be directly on the ocean floor. Since there will be a gap between the tanker and the ocean floor, there will be room under the tanker to move equipment to the gusher, to close it. While the oil company is closing the gusher, the tanker will collect the oil so that the oil doesn't pollute, and so that it isn't lost.

(If gold instead of oil were washed away, people would rightly complain that our national treasure was being wasted. National treasure is also wasted if oil is dispersed and lost.)

If BP likes another idea better, fine. Whatever idea they decide on, they should test and improve it now, so that they're ready for the next oil spill.

No Worries mate!

[Maelwryth]

It has been removed from the environment.

Re:Should be enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh, I hate elderberries.

Re: So many paid shills in this thread. Cry more,

[halivar]

Don't forget the conspiracy nuts. They're also in every thread.

I shall taunt you a second time

[Zynder]

Your father didn't. He smelt of them all the time!

Re:Where is the location? Where is the map?

[Zynder]

I'm guessing it's a lot like chicken!