Monday, June 28, 2010

Deepwater Horizon Mystery - Methane

Scientists testing the waters in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon well have found massive amounts of sea life-killing methane. From Reuters:

Texas A&M University oceanography professor John Kessler, just back from a 10-day research expedition near the BP Plc oil spill in the gulf, says methane gas levels in some areas are "astonishingly high."

Kessler's crew took measurements of both surface and deep water within a 5-mile (8 kilometer) radius of BP's broken wellhead.

"There is an incredible amount of methane in there," Kessler told reporters in a telephone briefing.


In some areas, the crew of 12 scientists found concentrations that were 100,000 times higher than normal.

"We saw them approach a million times above background concentrations" in some areas, Kessler said.

Methane can fuel microbe growth that strips the water of oxygen, giving rise to "dead zones."

1 comment:

Anyong said...

There are those people in business who look at the oceans as just a big bath tub of water. It would be interesting to know if Hayward is aware the Atlantic Ocean produces 45% of the oxygen we breath. Regulation is desparatly needed to make oil companies live by rules and develop some ethics. A difficult task for governments who accept money from oil companies such as BP for campaign purposes. This gusher is NOT a "lib-con" thing. As mentioned numerous times, Obama received contributions from BP - as many on both sides of the political fence did. It's simply that no one should be taking money from any corporations or large labor - period. Zip. Nada. Nein. Anio. Not a blessed thing. Not from Big Oil, not from the AMA, not from insurance companies, not from the American Bar Association, not from the NEA or AFT, not from AFL-CIO, not from Haliburton - no company or professional/labor affiliate who/which can benefit from laws passed. With that said, that leaves us, the voters, right? And that leaves the huge gap between the 2% ultra-wealthy of the US who earn over half of the money - and the rest of us working class. How do you think it would play out? Interesting to think about, no? The same applies to Canada as well.