Scientists Build Case for Undersea Plumes
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: May 28, 2010
IN THE GULF OF MEXICO — The ocean caught fire.
Justin Gillis
University of Georgia researchers prepare samples drawn from the deep under the gulf.
Multimedia
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As it blazed, a dense column of black smoke rose toward the sky. Oily water, the color of strong tea, slopped up the sides of boats. The breeze carried an acrid smell, like gasoline fumes.
Aboard the research vessel F.G. Walton Smith, anxiety was growing.
Five scientists and six students had come to study the oil leak and its effect on the sea. They brought flasks and gloves, refrigerators and freezers, tiny tools and huge cylinders of gas.
They were not looking for oil on the surface, where it was so thick in places that it was being burned off, but for plumes of fine oil droplets far beneath the waves.
The stakes were high. Two weeks earlier, when some of these scientists had disclosed evidence of undersea oil plumes, their claim had been greeted skeptically by the government. The scientists’ credibility was on the line.
If the plumes did exist, much of the wisdom about combating oil spills might need to be reconsidered. The plumes would suggest that any future oil leak in deep water could be expected to do much of its damage in the sea, not on shore.
But where were the plumes?
After a slow start, American science is finally beginning to tackle the oil disaster in earnest. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency charged with monitoring the health of the oceans, is sending multiple boats into the gulf. The National Science Foundation, another arm of the government, is issuing rapid grants to finance academic teams, including the one aboard the Walton Smith. BP, the oil company responsible for the spill, has pledged $500 million for research. And scientists like those aboard the Walton Smith are getting emergency financing from the government for their studies.
This stepped-up effort is starting to bear fruit. This week, another research vessel confirmed the existence of a huge undersea plume. And on Thursday, a team of scientists appointed by the Obama administration offered a more credible estimate of the flow rate at the broken well, putting it at two to four times the previous calculation.
That higher estimate only added to the sense among academic scientists that much of the oil must be hovering in the deep sea, instead of surfacing. The goal of the researchers aboard the Walton Smith was to nail the existence of such deep-sea plumes beyond any doubt.
They sailed early this week from Gulfport, Miss., and went back to the spot where they had originally discovered a large plume. It was no longer there.
All one afternoon, the Walton Smith hopscotched across the gulf. The top scientists on board, Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia and Vernon Asper of the University of Southern Mississippi, peered intently at instrument readouts, hoping for a signal.
Down to the bottom of the sea went a huge apparatus designed to test the water and grab samples of it. The results kept coming up clean.
Then, late in the afternoon of the second day at sea, the entire scientific crew suddenly leapt to attention.
The boat had arrived at a new sampling site, west of the oil leak, and the instruments were traveling once again to the bottom. In a clean ocean, they would be expected to produce fairly straight lines on a graph.
Instead, wild squiggles were showing up. The display looked like one of those seismograph readings taken in the throes of an earthquake. At three different depths, the instruments picked up plumes of material drifting through the deep ocean.
Dr. Asper stood back, arms crossed, watching the squiggles appear. “To see something like this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” he said. “It’s really remarkable.”
Soon, a giant winch on the rear of the boat hauled special bottles back from the deep, carrying water samples. The younger researchers rushed to the rear deck.
Working quickly in a daisy chain, circling the bottles, they filled small vials and other containers, then hustled back to their makeshift laboratory on the main deck of the Walton Smith.
Over the next few hours, they filtered some of the water. They shook some samples. They stirred some. They pickled some. They bubbled gases through the water. They refrigerated some vials. They froze some more.
Then they got ready to do it all again.
Within a day, word would come that a separate university vessel, the Weatherbird II, had discovered a giant plume stretching in the other direction from the broken well, toward Mobile Bay. That one threatens some of the finest fishing territory in the gulf.
It will take weeks of laboratory work to confirm with certainty that the plumes are made of oil droplets, or more likely, some complex mixture of oil and natural gas. If that idea holds up, the existence of these undersea plumes may well turn out to be the major scientific discovery of the great oil spill of 2010.
4 opmerkingen:
Stan,
Dit heeft wel niet met bovenstaande te maken, maar ik wil het toch doorgeven. Ik kreeg het net toegestuurd.
Beste mensen,
Bij mijn bezoeken aan de Palestijnse Gebieden heb ik herhaaldelijk de 'Tent of the Nations' bezocht, een project van Daoud Nassar een Palestijnse Christen op een boerderij vlak bij het dorp Nahalin. Ik heb ook geparticipeerd in één van hun workshops voor de vrouwen van Nahalin over een gezonde leefstijl. Daoud en zijn gezin zijn de enige Christelijke familie in het dorp, maar toch heeft hij veel gezag. Hij is een advocaat van geweldloos verzet tegen de drie Israelische nederzettingen die het dorp omringen. Zijn boerderij en projecten zijn al jaren het doelwit van allerlei acties vanuit die nederzettingen en het bezettingsleger. Nu is de bedreiging wel zeer acuut geworden. Via onderstaande website kan geprotesteerd worden tegen de sloopplannen van de Israelische overheid.
Ik hoop op ieders hulp daarbij.
Hartelijke groeten, Date
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/stop-the-demolition-of-nassar-family-farmtent-of-nations-buildings/458665763/taf
Scum alert:
Zalm acht terugbetalen staatssteun ABN Amro onzeker
Het is onwaarschijnlijk dat de dertig miljard euro die in ABN Amro en het Nederlandse deel van Fortis Bank zijn gestoken, ooit terugvloeit in de staatskas. Dit zei topman van de staatsbank en oud-minister van Financiën Gerrit Zalm vrijdag op BNR Nieuwsradio.
"Het zal moeilijk haalbaar zijn die dertig miljard terug te halen." Hij wijst er daarbij op dat niet al het geld in ABN Amro en Fortis is gestoken, maar een deel ook in verzekeraar ASR.
Na drie dagen staat BP nog even ver met top kill: nergens
http://zaplog.nl/zaplog/article/na_drie_dagen_staat_bp_nog_even_ver_met_top_kill_nergens
Scum alert:
De Nederlandse overheid betaalde 16,8 miljard aan Brussel en moest daarna de bankcombinatie met vele miljarden twee keer te hulp komen om de beide banken van voldoende kapitaal te voorzien.
In de balans van de overheid staan ABN Amro en Fortis Bank nu te boek voor 9,3 miljard. Dat is gelijk aan het eigen vermogen van de beide banken. "Die 9,3 miljard zullen we zeker verslaan" meldde Zalm, maar hij gaf uiteindelijk toe dat de Nederlandse belastingbetaler een deel van het in ABN Amro gestoken geld waarschijnlijk kwijt is.
z24.nl
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