Monitering the Gulf Oil Spill: Worst Case Scenarios

[labelwench]

It is interesting to me, that while we are able to identify the 'chemical signature' of the oil to determine it's place of origin, we are less able to be certain of how the oil actually found it's way from the spill site to the beach in Galveston. If the oil somehow came off of one of the ships that is transporting the collected oil to facilities for processing, then another concern has been raised.

While this find is a mere few gallons, are we to presume it is the only incident of 'leaked oil' should such turn out to be the case?

None of the news is good, where the oil disaster is concerned, these days.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_...a/10520458.stm

Oil has been leaking from a blown-out sea floor well since 22 April.

The US Coast Guard commander for the Galveston region, Capt Marcus Woodring, said about five gallons (19 litres) of tar balls were found on Saturday on a beach near Galveston and determined to be from the Deepwater Horizon leak.

[labelwench]

As the sad saga of the oil disaster continues, my mind has picked up on the wonder of what effect this shall have on the phytoplankton, whose role in marine biology and in our planet's atmosphere is considerably greater than their minute size might suggest.

A brief backgrounder on phytoplankton.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...oplankton.html

[Meem]

So, unless one is in a cave somewhere, or happens to be on the UFO that left, or arrived in, China recently .... ( ) they would have to be pretty tuned out to no know "the leak" has been "stopped." From what I heard on NPR, so far the measurments are in the gray area. Which means, it could be possible that there is a leak somewhere in the well casing from the ocean floor to some 13,000' below. Now, I'm no genius but, even just a few hundred feet of earth crust more than likely would show no immediate sign of leakage. I couldn't even begin to speculate how long it might take for oil to begin "breeching" the ocean floor, but one thing I would be willing to speculate is that the deeper the possible leak could be, the long it would take for oil to "surface." The pressure is in the gray area, meaning it's not as high as it should be (to what they think optimal pressure should be zoned), and that more than likely the oil is leaking elsewhere. I just wish the media wouls stop .... using the word stopped. "The leak is non-apparent-or visible at this time.

But here's to hope, keep your digits crossed.

[labelwench]

Night shift humor.......

There's nothing very funny about oil disasters but you've got to hand it to the Australians for this skit.

http://videosift.com/video/Front-Fell-Off

[timeparticle]

So, unless one is in a cave somewhere, or happens to be on the UFO that left, or arrived in, China recently .... ( ) they would have to be pretty tuned out to no know "the leak" has been "stopped." From what I heard on NPR, so far the measurments are in the gray area. Which means, it could be possible that there is a leak somewhere in the well casing from the ocean floor to some 13,000' below. Now, I'm no genius but, even just a few hundred feet of earth crust more than likely would show no immediate sign of leakage. I couldn't even begin to speculate how long it might take for oil to begin "breeching" the ocean floor, but one thing I would be willing to speculate is that the deeper the possible leak could be, the long it would take for oil to "surface." The pressure is in the gray area, meaning it's not as high as it should be (to what they think optimal pressure should be zoned), and that more than likely the oil is leaking elsewhere. I just wish the media wouls stop .... using the word stopped. "The leak is non-apparent-or visible at this time.

But here's to hope, keep your digits crossed.

It probably isn't the "optimal pressure", but the expected pressure they are referring to. They believed the initial pressure of the blowout was between 20,000 to 70,000 psi, a huge number. The pressure gages are not reading close to that, maybe. They are worried that another leak is diminishing the pressure at the gages. Weeks ago, stories emerged about a 20 mile radius from the rig of leaks from fissures. Maybe BP didn't get the memo...

[timeparticle]

MIAMI – In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a new website, gulfcoastspill.com is available to help people find and share spill information. Gulfcoastspill.com’s main function is to collect images, videos and reports from people impacted by the spill and to make them available to the public. For example, people can upload images of oil on beaches, injured wildlife, volunteer activities and much, much more. The goal of the project is to speed recovery by crowd sourcing information and making this information readily available to recovery teams. Gulfcoastspill.com’s technology is open sourced and the data is available to anyone. San Diego State University’s Immersive Visualization Center, also known as the Viz Lab, will be storing the images and data and ensuring that it is open to the public.


Gulfcoastspill.com is being developed and maintained by the Gulf Coast Spill Coalition, Inc., a newly formed charitable organization, that has brought together technology and web design experts, educators, legal and business professionals and ordinary individuals who want to help with the crisis. Gulfcoastspill.com was launched with the combined efforts of the members of Crisis Commons (crisiscommons.org), a small band of idealists and innovators whose goal is to cultivate innovation in the use of technology for mobility and efficiency during crises; EdgeCase (edgecase.com), a leading Ruby on Rails software development firm, whose team built the website; Intridea (Intridea.com), a technology firm that developed the mobile reporting application; and Engine Yard (engineyard.com), a cloud computing and hosting firm that generously donated their servers and disk space..

The info and pics at this site will bypass any media and BP blocking. Check it out. You do not have to register or give personal info.


http://www.gulfcoastspill.com/sightings

[labelwench]

I'm tempted to explain the subtle message behind the not too subtle Australian skit, and then I remembered another teaching.

If you have to explain something, it's not going to fly.

Right........

(Lloyd did ask, on another thread, why do people get so angry when the truth is pointed out?)

[labelwench]

Testing the waters.......

Some very disturbing numbers are coming to light.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_651331.html

[Meem]

Nice link L,

Check this out ...
Tue Jul 20, 12:57 pm ET
BP caught using altered image of command center


http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...command-center

lol, makes ya wonder ...

[labelwench]

Once the relief wells are in place, the option of a 'static kill' will be attempted as BP works toward a permanent solution.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?se...rticle-7566526

Some imaging from NASA

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/fea...ill/index.html