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BP Oil Spill: Scientists Find Giant Plume of Droplets 'Missed' by Official Account
A 22-mile plume of droplets from BP's Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico undermines claim that oil has degraded
Scientists have mapped a 22-mile plume of oil droplets from BP's rogue well in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, providing the strongest evidence yet of the fate of the crude that spewed into the sea for months.
Images taken during the descent of an underwater vehicle show oil droplets appearing at a depth of 1065-1300m. (Photograph: Ho/AFP/Getty Images) The report offers the most authoritative challenge to date
to White House assertions that most of the 5m barrels of oil that
spewed into the Gulf is gone.
"These results indicate that efforts to book-keep where the oil went must now include this plume," said Christopher Reddy one of the members of the team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
The report, which is published in the journal Science, also said the plume was very slow to break down by natural forces, increasing the likelihood that oil could have travelled long distances in the Gulf before it was degraded.
"Many people speculated that subsurface oil droplets were being easily degraded," said Richard Camilli, the lead author of the paper. "Well we didn't find that. We found it was still there."
At the heart of the debate is the rate at which naturally occurring microbes have consumed the oil from the runaway well. Even by the White House estimates, about one quarter of the oil was siphoned away from the well, skimmed off the surface, or burned. But the White House, in a high-profile briefing, earlier this month suggested that microbes had eaten as much as 50% of the remaining oil.
The study reinforces earlier reports from research voyages led by scientists from the University of Georgia and Texas A&M University who detected the presence of deepwater plumes of oil.
But the authors argued that theirs was more authoritative as it is the first to be published in a major peer-reviewed journal since oil began pumping into the ocean from the broken well four months ago. The authors also noted their access to superior technology including one of the few underwater robots available outside the oil industry.
According to their findings the deepwater plume measures 22 miles long, 1.2 miles wide and 650 feet high.
The team took around 57,000 samples from the plume during a 10-day research voyage at the end of June. It found that the plume was not made up of pure oil but a combination of toxic oil compounds including benzene and xylene.
The study puts the White House and government scientific agencies in an increasingly awkward position after a high-profile announcement two weeks ago that the oil was broken down or had been cleaned up.
A team led by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that just over a quarter of the 49m barrels of oil remained in the Gulf as a light sheen on the surface or degraded tar balls washing ashore.
It also raises new questions about the strategic decision taken by the Obama administration to use nearly 2m gallons of chemical dispersant Corexit to break up the oil, including some on the ocean floor 5,000 feet below the surface.
The administration faces further pushback today in a congressional hearing on the fate of the oil and the safety of seafood from the Gulf.
Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University, said the White House accounting for the oil is misleading and that only 10% of the oil that spewed into the Gulf has been removed from the ocean. Jane Lubchenco, the NOAA chief and herself a marine scientist, has stood by the government estimates.
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38 Comments so far
Show AllJust as citizens of NYC were told to get back to shopping, the post-911 air perfectly fit to breathe, here we see an interest in getting those fishing industries (positioned along the Gulf) back to life.
Cover-ups are becoming THE way business is done in the U.S. With so much graft, corruption, and deregulation there's no reasonable basis for trust, so it must be manufactured. That's done by high-paid PR firms tasked with masking the truth with its business-friendly replacements.
Well-stated and exactly correct, SR.
FWIW, despite the Day One technical justifications for deploying dispersants like "Corexit" early and often, it seemed obvious that both BP and the government were desperate for anything that would facilitate declaring, "Poof! All gone!"
Even though I don't pretend to technical expertise beyond years of watching (or half-watching) PBS science and nature programs, I knew better than to swallow the optimistic explanations that all of the nasty petroleum and chemical products would swiftly become biodegradable, and be "absorbed" safely into the biosphere.
If we survive the next year or two, perhaps we'll see a Special Edition of "Nature" or "NOVA" or "National Geographic" that starts out with this pat explanation, then moves to the inevitable "... or so the scientists THOUGHT..." phase.
The twist is that it may be SPONSORED by BP-- because there's really no end to the dispersing.
OBEDIENT: I always appreciate a compliment or nod from a writer of your caliber. Since I live in Florida and spend time along the Gulf Coast, I am naturally "on guard" about this matter. When I was in Peru I met several influential people who all advised me to sell everything and leave the state. Besides the fact of the poor real estate market, I realize that MANY areas will be dealing with either climate change impacts OR those that will result from abhorrent, derelict forms of deregulation. These are well on the way to ensuring that poisons will impact more and more of our homesteads, waterways, foodstuffs, and lives. In other words, ultimately, there's no place to run.
Thank you again. I finished an article yesterday and a column this morning, so I've had time to spare on the threads today. It's almost time to bike... although the temperature outside feels like a steam room.
Dear Siouxrose. The fisheries of Galveston and nearby harbors were never shut down hence do not need to "get back to life". I will eat shrimp caught near Galveston and sold in Galveston any day.
The work of the Woods Hole scientists has raised some interesting yet unanswered questions. Is the "Giant Plume" at depth due to the dispersant used at depth? Does the direction of the plume mean that there is a powerful counter-current at depth to the so-called "Loop Current" which feeds the Gulf Stream? Could that be the reason why so little of the oil has gotten into the Gulf Stream via the Loop Current? How much has the plume dispersed since the measurements of the end of June? Neither the questions nor the answers to them absolve BP and our governments but they may shed fresh light on the dispersion of industrial pollutants which will continue to enter our Gulf even if no oil spills occur.
Imagine if this were Bush's EPA, NOAA, Thad Allen equivalent, then the current "progressive" Oilbomber apologists would be screaming bloody murder about the deception, and rightfully so.
Oilbomber lies, deceives, charms, fools, manipulates, operates, assassinates, tortures, bombs, and all that in the service of the Empire and the tiny minority of the Über-rich.
Anyone who has watched this scenario from the beginning and paid attention, so almost none of mainstream America, knows that the whole thing has been surrounded by lies and ommisions of truth all along. Why should that change now?
the official statement says the mess is gone, people hear the mess is gone, people move on. Scientists can prove whatever they want. How many Americans or otherwise read scientific journals or even have access to them? Interested students and the scientific community is about all.
It barely matters anyway. The contradictory messages, the mixed reports. the vague assertions, they all fill their role which is to deliberately obfuscate the situation and prevent anyone from forming a real concensus. If no one can can form a conclusion no one can be angry, or form a solid plan to fix the problem or the politics, or feel righteuos anger, or any outcome that might actually cause some change for the better. The whole debacle creates an atmosphere of distrust, for politicians, for corporations, for science, for the media. Americans are left confused and isolated, a perfect population in terms of controlability and suppression.
You just described the definition of terrorism: creating an atmosphere of mistrust, isolation, and creating confusion to divide a population. The lesson the terrorists learned from 9/11 is that the public can be easily fooled. Buildings don't explode and planes don't vaporize. Oil doesn't disappear either. So who are the 9/11 terrorists? Ans. Whoever's benefitting from disasters.
And it's working. As an outside observer it appears Americans are terrified. Terrified of the food they eat thanks to oil contamination in the gulf and genetic modification elsewhere, terrified of losing their jobs and homes due to the Wall Street crashing the economy, terrified of getting sick due to insurance companies shafting them, terrified of Islam, terrified of the religious right, terrified of homosexuals...
Some of this is justified. The economy, for example,really is tanked and most likely about to get far worse, healthcare really is bogus, food and the environment really are trashed. Problems that used to belong to the third world are now hitting home in rapid succession. Tha vaunted city on the hill and American exceptionalism are being shown to be the bullshit that they always were (which the rest of the world clued into long ago if they ever believed it all). There are many good reasons for Americans to be afraid. The American dream and the lifestyles it encouraged are coming to an end for most of the population and for their children that dream is going to a nightmare of prisons instead of schools, warfare instead of healtcare, necrosystems instead of ecosystems, and fascism instead of democracy.
With Obama and his fellow Adm. officials washing their hands of every controversial item so quickly and vigorously: they should make some side-money doing infomercials for obsessive compulsive disorders. The b.s. meter is broken yet again. Who can believe this crap besides the people who have to for monetary reasons? They're all acting like the mayor of Amity in Jaws: " Shark? what shark? there's a shark? there's no shark!! The water's fine. Let's all go the Gulf and show them it's all over. The shark left for warmer waters. " Good gravy; these are insane times.
The critical error was to allow BP to use "COREX-NOT" from the beginning.
Without it, 99% of the light oil and gas would have simply risen to the surface for collection, which would have been possible using both conventional and advanced methods.
It could have been kept away and been collected 150 miles from the coast, given the several months of good weather that followed the spill.
The advanced methods are shown here--
http://tinyurl.com/CEA-CREATURE
and another at the HOME PAGE OF Oil-Tanker_Carousel.
The oil consortium needs to have these methods perfected and deployed in the "bull-pen" for the "next" oil spill (not if but when).
"White House assertions that most of the 5m barrels of oil that spewed into the Gulf is gone."
Boy, this says it all about our faux, transparent democracy. It's just gone folks. Just like when you flush the toilet, it just magically disappears.
I read a story from a fisherman in the gulf who had a bottleneck dolphin swim up to his boat. He shooed the animal away as dolphins distract from fishing but when it came back, he noticed it was blowing oil out of its blowhole. The fisherman thought later the dolphin was asking for help as it was suffocating from the oil.
And like the dolphin, our democracy and human rights are suffocating. And as a white, anglo saxon, male in newly touch with his feelings, i want you to know what's happening is hurting more than anything i've ever known. And i also want you to know the hurt is good because it means there are consequences to my/our actions/inactions. Want to take a road trip around the country, well, how many dolphins you gotta suffocate to satisfy your selfish whim. Stay home, buy local and use as little energy and water as you need.
And Robert Gibbs, you elitist, white piece of crap, you can take your critique of us leftie liberals and shove it where the sun never shines. You are an elitist a##hole.
The lesson I learn is different from the posts above. The bare fact is: no one knows where the oil went or where it is right now. It isn't that the administration lied about it; It simply took the most optimistic figure and declared it was accurate.
No one really knows how the oil and the dispersant are being broken down; no one really knows the health effects on humans or other organisms. This is one big science experiment that is being conducted without a hypothesis being tested.
If I lived along the Gulf Coast, I would assume the worst until I was proven wrong. I would not eat shellfish harvested there; I would not allow my children to play where oil and dispersants are known to exist; I would discourage pregnant women from exposing themselves to contaminated water. Both BP and the government have a vested interest in assuming everything is OK; I would take the opposite tack--things are not OK. If I am wrong, no harm is done. If I am right, then I've avoided a problem.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who will guard the guardians, watch the watchers, etc?)
Hello drosera,
Yes in this case the government and BP have a vested interest in lying. Remember Katrina and the September 11 attacks. The government had told whoppers in those cases so why should anyone besides a faux noise viewer, Reich wing radio listener or lame stream media consumer believe what has been stated by big business or government?
Finally the scientists are allowed to examine the crime scene and guess what? They find 22 mile! plume of oil.
My my.
Yes but they also provided information that can be used to calculate the total amount of hydrocarbons in the plume. It is between 5000 and 7000 barrels. Furthermore, they found in June that the plume needed an input of about 45 barrels per day to exist. Now that the oil spout has been plugged it may therefore take about 140 to 160 days for this plume to be either chemically degraded, or be dispersed by Brownian motion, or by both.
The information about this disaster has been heavily sprayed with truth-dispersant and we are the microbes expected to gobble it up.
Unfortunately, truth dispersant contains harmful compounds such as lies and disinformation, which are known in the State of California to cause permanent brain damage and registering for the Republicrat party.
and will also cause you to stare for hours at corporate media as it bullshits you for hours causing your eyes to spin. Duhhhh.
matt
galveston tx
...and when buildings explode and planes vaporize, "truth dispersant" causes you to think that things like that really do happen in the physical universe.
That would be a specialized form of truth dispersant known as scientific evidence dispersant, which I believe was the form used here as well.
You will always finds shreds of truth where the truth has been shredded.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who will guard the guardians, watch the watchers, etc?)
Hello mathew loughran,
You left out your ears to bleed. It must have been an oversight due to the sight of spinning eyes.
I think most of what you describe happened to me, even though we have Ahnold at the helm, hard at work to keep everything on an even keel.
I had so hoped the consequences wouldn't be permanent.
It really does look like the damage is much less than expected. One upcoming issue: They would be expecting a record "dead zone" this year, caused by fertilzer runoff in the Mississippi watershed, even without the oil. If the oil eating bacteria go nuts on the plume, it could be even worse. Dissolved methane also chases oxygen out of the water. Its really good the leak has been plugged.
An active tropical storm season would help stir oxygen into the water and further disperse the oil.
The oil will go away, but warming ocean temperatures and acidification are getting worse, and no one knows how bad it will get, even if we go CO2 neutral today.
"Oil and water don't mix." Just like a fool and his environment.
The culture of large corporations and the beltway have become as one, where lying and deceit are the norm. And the heroes in this culture are the PR firms. This is well documented and discussed in a book published in 1995 by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You (Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry). Just another parasitic growth that serves to maintain and enhance the status of the unscrupulous rich and powerful.
I thought the Oil Fairy took it all, and left a quarter under Obama's pillow?
There are over 300 million brains in the USA capable of estimating the amount of elite-spewed fossil materials still in the Gulf of Mexico. Under ideal conditions oil will decompose in 6 months to one year. Common sense tells us that in water the rate will be slower given that anaerobic digestion is an order of magnitude slower than aerobic. This probably means a factor of 2x slower for the elites' gulf oil mess. Another factor is the temperatures - much of the elite spew in the Gulf is at ten to fifteen degrees lower than the ideal conditions stated above, and this is probably another 2x in the slowdown of decomposition.
So we're looking at a likely two to four year span of time in which the oil will be converted to other organic matter and chemical outputs of decomposition that will then impose their own impacts upon the ecosystems across a much longer period of time.
Is the mainstream media doing anything to assist the people in gaining an intuitive idea of the damage from elite mega-plunder/destruction?
The first report of a huge "underwater plume" came from Cousteau and proved to be a fabrication of his brain. Yes, this report is from reputable scientists who took a huge number of samples...at the end of June. It is now close to the end of August. In order to know what is happening the same area should be re-sampled to produce some information on the rate of disappearance of the oil. The finding of the carcinogen benzene is alarming but not surprising because this hydrocarbon occurs in crude oil and while it is rather insoluble in water can be readily absorbed on solid particles. The study of Woods Hole has not explained why the plume extends into a westerly direction. Why did it not spread out?
Why is this in the Guardian but not the New York Times, I wonder?
Once again this number without the addition of its accuracy is ridiculously unscientific.
Yeah - why believe those crazy scientists!
I'd rather put my faith in all those white men in dark suits - why on earth should I believe anyone with mussed hair, plastic penguards and hush-puppies. So what if the scientists don't have an axe to grind here - I'm sticking with the suits - they'd never lie to us.
Heck, all that oil will probably be gone by next Monday.
Once again, Matt Simmons proved to be right.
Those god damn bastards!
According to the Science article which I have now read in full the plume has a volume of 15,64 cubic kilometers or 1.564 times ten power 13 liter. The concentration of hydrocarbons is give as at least 50 microgram per liter or 5 times power -5 gram per liter. Mass of the hydrocarbons is therefore 7.82 times power 8 gram. I assume for simplicity a density of 1 gram per mL hence the volume of hydrocarbons in the plume is 7.82 times power 5 liters. One barrel of oil is 158.8 liter. Hence the "giant plume" contains about 5000 barrels of oil although that could be a minimum. Even if I assume a more realistic density of 0.8 gram per mL the volume is 6250 barrels. And you call that a "giant plume"? Yes, in size. No in total amount of hydrocarbon. May I laugh?
"I thought the Oil Fairy took it all, and left a quarter under Obama's pillow?"
Yes: That does happen when you lose a Wisdom tooth.