Scientists warn of unseen deepwater oil disaster

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OIL_SPILL_MYSTERIES_OF_THE_DEEP?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-05-31-11-51-20

May 31, 11:51 AM EDT

Scientists warn of unseen deepwater oil disaster

By MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Independent scientists and government officials say there's a disaster we can't see in the Gulf of Mexico's mysterious depths, the ruin of a world inhabited by enormous sperm whales and tiny, invisible plankton.

Researchers have said they have found at least two massive underwater plumes of what appears to be oil, each hundreds of feet deep and stretching for miles. Yet the chief executive of BP PLC - which has for weeks downplayed everything from the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf to the environmental impact - said there is "no evidence" that huge amounts of oil are suspended undersea.

BP CEO Tony Hayward said the oil naturally gravitates to the surface - and any oil below was just making its way up. However, researchers say the disaster in waters where light doesn't shine through could ripple across the food chain.

"Every fish and invertebrate contacting the oil is probably dying. I have no doubt about that," said Prosanta Chakrabarty, a Louisiana State University fish biologist.

..more..

there's nothing to say about them.

:(

:sarcasm:

kestrel the microbiologist, who understands the big picture >>>> :cry:

nothing short of criminal.

All those countless sea creatures are going to die and sink, out of sight, and BP likely won't be held accountable for their environmental terrorism.

of many species...

Sorry, not feeling too bubbly about this whole scenario.

Heck of a job, BP.

:banghead:

Unless someone can tell me why this oil is less dense than water then I'm inclined to be mighty skeptical about these plumes (that Rachel has been reporting on for a week).

BP CEO Tony Hayward made news again, with an assertion that there are no underwater oil plumes.


Multiple news reports cite scientists who say the plumes exist.

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=oil+plume+gulf&oe=UTF-8&um=1&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw
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The only one that has any value is your last link, and it says that the ship carrying samples was to be back in port last friday and that testing to see what the plume consisted of would be done then in the labs. So just the time span between then and now makes me even more skeptical. If it were really oil, and nothing in any report conclusively identifies it as that (by the way - as far as I can tell there is actually only one source, its just being repeated all over the place), then you would have expected this news to be widespread. It is not, only the speculation that it might be oil, that it might be related, is widespread.

Let's stop building on the speculation until the actual scientific data is in.

wish I could find the link. but it was weeks ago. i thnk that currents are in layers and they can be caught up in one. but yeah, the dispersants are supposed to hide the oi

There are two things that bother me. The first is that oil floats but what seems just as important is that the oil coming out of the pipe is hot, very hot. That too would cause it to rise in the colder salt water. I have little doubt that something is going on down there but it just doesn't seem to me that it is oil, with or without dispersant. But it doesn't matter a bit what I think, what matters is what results come from the samples taken - and none of the reports gives those results, even now, 4 days later. You'd think that this matter would be of such a priority that it would not take 4 days to say what the stuff is.

In the atmosphere. Couldn't the same thing happen under the ocean despite the variations in density and temperature? After all, we are dealing with a situation not seen or studied before and I doubt that the layers of water under the Gulf have ever been properly studied.

Inversion layers can cause some mighty strange effects in the atmosphere and the density differential would be no where near as wide a range as it could be in the ocean.

There are a myriad of sources detailing the use of the dispersant. Do some research yourself.

Is the use of dispersants underwater common?
Using dispersants underwater is a relatively new idea; the goal of such a technique is to break up and disperse the oil before it reaches the surface.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkI011yb05g&feature=player_embedded

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052802346.html

La. scientist locates another vast oil plume in the gulf

By David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 28, 2010; 4:37 PM

A day after scientists reported finding a huge "plume" of oil extending miles east of the leaking BP well, on Friday a Louisiana scientist said his crew had located another vast plume of oily globs, miles in the opposite direction.

James H. Cowan Jr., a professor at Louisiana State University, said his crew on Wednesday found a plume of oil in a section of the gulf 75 miles northwest of the source of the leak.

Cowan said that his crew sent a remotely controlled submarine into the water, and found it full of oily globules, from the size of a thumbnail to the size of a golf ball. Unlike the plume found east of the leak -- in which the oil was so dissolved that contaminated water appeared clear -- Cowan said the oil at this site was so thick that it covered the lights on the submarine.

"It almost looks like big wet snowflakes, but they're brown and black and oily," Cowan said. The submarine returned to the surface entirely black, he said.

Cowan said that the submarine traveled about 400 feet down, close to the sea floor, and found oil all the way down.

are in this thread: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6534

Granted, this is at shaollower depths, but clearly the "dispersed" oil is not simply floating to the surface.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7MD9ldxGgQ&feature=player_embedded#!

video:
http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/7641133/

another video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cp6fHINQ94&feature=player_embedded


here's an article:
http://scienceblogs.com/speakeasyscience/2010/05/out_of_sight.php

from "Oil Spills for Dummies"

"... as it turns out, deep water physics tell us that oil leaks coming from about a mile below the surface - as with the Deepwater Horizon - actually don't come so readily to the surface.

That's because at greater depths, under greater pressure, water acquires greater density. In fact, this increased density of water can achieve a kind of equality with the naturally buoyant hydrocarbons in oil. Scientists call this a neutral buoyancy state and what it means is that instead of floating to the surface, the pressures exerted in deep water cause the oil to mix instead into subsurface waters.

But beyond the physics of deep water spills, BP itself may also be creating these underwater plumes by its heavy use of chemical dispersants to break up the slick of oil on the surface. As countless studies show, as dispersants break the oil into tiny particles, those the fragments tend to sink below the surface where - if all goes to plan - they are engulfed by oil-digesting microbes and degraded into more harmless materials.

As one industry group, the International Tankers Association, states: "If dispersion is successful, a characteristic brown plume will spread slowly down from the water surface a few minutes after treatment."

The creation of dispersed oil plumes isn't exactly a secret to our government either. For instance, here's a handy document created by our own National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): The Dispersant Application Observer Job Aid. And - surprise - it includes includes photo after photo of plumes created by spraying disperant onto surface oil.

I've been saying this for weeks now.

Link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8263671

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h450SSldjIc2H9IswDj7vc-luPogD9G2JS9G3


BP spokesman: more proof of plumes needed
By MATTHEW BROWN (AP) – 2 hours ago
NEW ORLEANS, — A spokesman for BP PLC says the company needs more proof to support claims by scientists that huge plumes of oil are suspended underwater in the Gulf of Mexico.
CEO Tony Hayward said Sunday there was "no evidence" of the plumes and that all the oil from the spill was floating to the surface. Spokesman Graham MacEwen said Tuesday that BP is awaiting analysis of water samples taken in the Gulf before making a final determination.
Since an April 20 blowout aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, researchers from universities in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi have reported plumes.
Rep. Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has asked BP to back up Hayward's claim that they do not exist.

Markey is asking for the science behind BP's claims. Bwahahaha

He knows BP is just yapping like a fenced dog.

This guy Markey is a good one.

Everybody watching the live cams owes a debt of gratitude to him for pushing to have the cams available.

so they can try to hide and deny the true magnitude of the disaster, at least from the public?

No problem here! There are no plumes!! Everything is fine!!

We need to tell BP to shut the hell up and we need to NEVER, EVER ask
their opinion about anything meaningful. They're lying pieces of scum
who created this disaster.

It's time for Scripps, Woods Hole, seasoned scientists, researchers, photographers
and writers to tell the story---not these lying, greedmongering bastards who
only want to maximize profits.

Good for you, BP. Go maximize profits. Lie and kow tow to your precious
shareholders and bamboozle them like you're PR marketing weasels on acid. Just
don't expect us to listen to your nonsense or pay attention when you begin
spewing your bullshit.

It's time to turn toward real people, real professionals, real scientists and
real experts who know what the hell they're doing and talking about.

Aren't we done listening to these bastards vomit up their ridiculous, blathering
froth of laughable lies and ass-covering lines?