Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world-killing' event
Ominous reports are leaking past the BP Gulf salvage operation news blackout that the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico may be about to reach biblical proportions. 251 million years ago a mammoth undersea methane bubble caused massive explosions, poisoned the atmosphere and destroyed more than 96 percent of all life on Earth. Experts agree that what is known as the Permian extinction event was the greatest mass extinction event in the history of the world. 55 million years later another methane bubble ruptured causing more mass extinctions during the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM). The LPTM lasted 100,000 years. [3] Those subterranean seas of methane virtually reshaped the planet when they explosively blew from deep beneath the waters of what is today called the Gulf of Mexico. Now, worried scientists are increasingly concerned the same series of catastrophic events that led to worldwide death back then may be happening again-and no known technology can stop it.
251 million years ago a mammoth undersea methane bubble caused massive explosions, poisoned the atmosphere and destroyed more than 96 percent of all life on Earth. Experts agree that what is known as the Permian extinction event was the greatest mass extinction event in the history of the world.
55 million years later another methane bubble ruptured causing more mass extinctions during the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM).
The LPTM lasted 100,000 years. [3]
Those subterranean seas of methane virtually reshaped the planet when they explosively blew from deep beneath the waters of what is today called the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, worried scientists are increasingly concerned the same series of catastrophic events that led to worldwide death back then may be happening again-and no known technology can stop it.
The article then goes on to discuss in somewhat less lurid detail.
I lack the knowledge required to evaluate.
Helium Help - How to earn money at Helium
There is opportunity to earn more than pocket change on Helium; on the other hand . . . don't quit your day job. Note: The Helium revenue share is figured daily for your account. If you have a rating star, you will receive revenue share payment for that day. If you do not participate by maintaining a rating star on Helium for a full 12 months, you will lose any accrued earnings in your account. For a more detailed explanation of our payment structure, read section #5 of our Helium User Agreement. Upfront Payments Starting with the July writing cycle (which starts June 25), we will pay Upfront Payments only for the first five (5) articles written to a title in an eligible channel. We also pay on the number of writing stars you have on calculation day (the last day of the month). Based on your stars, you can earn: 1 Writing Star - $0.50 per article published 2 Writing Star - $1.00 per article published 3 Writing Star - $1.50 per article published 4 Writing Star - $2.00 per article published 5 Writing Star - $2.50 per article published According to our analysis of titles and top-earning articles over the past year, highly rated articles tend to win in the ad-revenue-share game. If you are article Number 15 in a title of 30 articles, chances are you're not earning. In order for you to earn more and get better visibility for your writing on the web, we want to encourage all members to write to empty and "lonely" titles. Use the Title Finder to uncover the empty titles or titles with only a few articles. We're not telling you NOT to write to titles with more than five articles. But we are strongly suggesting that you will do better to write where you can earn more in the long run. Ineligible channels: Some channels are more lucrative to Helium in terms of advertising revenue, and it makes sense that these channels are where we encourage most of our writing energy. Opinion pieces, poetry, news stories just don't generate the revenue we need to share with our writers.
There is opportunity to earn more than pocket change on Helium; on the other hand . . . don't quit your day job. Note: The Helium revenue share is figured daily for your account. If you have a rating star, you will receive revenue share payment for that day. If you do not participate by maintaining a rating star on Helium for a full 12 months, you will lose any accrued earnings in your account. For a more detailed explanation of our payment structure, read section #5 of our Helium User Agreement. Upfront Payments
Starting with the July writing cycle (which starts June 25), we will pay Upfront Payments only for the first five (5) articles written to a title in an eligible channel. We also pay on the number of writing stars you have on calculation day (the last day of the month).
Based on your stars, you can earn:
According to our analysis of titles and top-earning articles over the past year, highly rated articles tend to win in the ad-revenue-share game. If you are article Number 15 in a title of 30 articles, chances are you're not earning. In order for you to earn more and get better visibility for your writing on the web, we want to encourage all members to write to empty and "lonely" titles. Use the Title Finder to uncover the empty titles or titles with only a few articles. We're not telling you NOT to write to titles with more than five articles. But we are strongly suggesting that you will do better to write where you can earn more in the long run.
Ineligible channels: Some channels are more lucrative to Helium in terms of advertising revenue, and it makes sense that these channels are where we encourage most of our writing energy. Opinion pieces, poetry, news stories just don't generate the revenue we need to share with our writers.
Reports, filtering through from oceanologists and salvage workers in the region, state that the upper level strata of the ocean floor is succumbing to greater and greater pressure. That pressure is causing a huge expanse of the seabed-estimated by some as spreading over thousands of square miles surrounding the BP wellhead-to bulge. Some claim the seabed in the region has risen an astounding 30 feet.The fractured BP wellhead, site of the former Deepwater Horizon, has become the epicenter of frenetic attempts to quell the monstrous flow of methane.The subterranean methane is pressurized at 100,000 pounds psi. According to Matt Simmons, an oil industry expert, the methane pressure at the wellhead has now skyrocketed to a terrifying 40,000 pounds psi. Another well-respected expert, Dr. John Kessler of Texas A&M University has calculated that the ruptured well is spewing 60 percent oil and 40 percent methane. The normal methane amount that escapes from a compromised well is about 5 percent.More evidence? A huge gash on the ocean floor--like a ragged wound hundreds of feet long--has been reported by the NOAA research ship, Thomas Jefferson. Before the curtain of the government enforced news blackout again descended abruptly, scientists aboard the ship voiced their concerns that the widening rift may go down miles into the earth. That gash too is hemorrhaging oil and methane. It's 10 miles away from the BP epicenter. Other, new fissures, have been spotted as far as 30 miles distant.Measurements of the multiple oil plumes now appearing miles from the wellhead indicate that as much as a total of 124,000 barrels of oil are erupting into the Gulf waters daily-that's about 5,208,000 gallons of oil per day. Most disturbing of all: Methane levels in the water are now calculated as being almost one million times higher than normal. Mass death on the water If the methane bubble--a bubble that could be as big as 20 miles wide--erupts with titanic force from the seabed into the Gulf, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will immediately sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists participating in the salvage operation will die instantly. Next, the ocean bottom will collapse, instantaneously displacing up to a trillion cubic feet of water or more and creating a towering supersonic tsunami annihilating everything along the coast and well inland. Like a thermonuclear blast, a high pressure atmospheric wave could precede the tidal wave flattening everything in its path before the water arrives. When the roaring tsunami does arrive it will scrub away all that is left.[7]
Mass death on the water
If the methane bubble--a bubble that could be as big as 20 miles wide--erupts with titanic force from the seabed into the Gulf, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will immediately sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists participating in the salvage operation will die instantly.
Next, the ocean bottom will collapse, instantaneously displacing up to a trillion cubic feet of water or more and creating a towering supersonic tsunami annihilating everything along the coast and well inland. Like a thermonuclear blast, a high pressure atmospheric wave could precede the tidal wave flattening everything in its path before the water arrives.
When the roaring tsunami does arrive it will scrub away all that is left.[7]
lurid? nah... details, shmetails... would that wake enough folks up? nah...
lots of other gulfs.
this has been my fear since the beginning of this clusterfuck, and while it may well be futile, i hope europe tries to stop the oil entering the med. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
The one source that backs up the 'news' links to a random blog of no obvious authority.
Admittedly given the news blackout anything at all could be happening down there, including an invasion by Daleks. But I think a cracking sea floor and/or a rise of 30ft would have triggered a few sea quakes by now, and that doesn't seem to have happened.
I'd be more worried about Siberian clathrates than I would be about a methane explosion in the GOM.
I have seen articles about and posts from the Jefferson referenced, only to be unable to find anything in a search. This included references to a significant leak somewhere about 20 miles south of the Deepwater Horizon site. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Oceanographer John Kessler analyzes methane levels from oil spill site
John Kessler, a chemical oceanographer in the College of Geosciences at Texas A&M University, is currently analyzing methane levels in water collected from seven miles to 500 meters from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead. Preliminary results, he says, point to high concentrations of the gas. "Methane levels ranged from 10,000 to nearly 1 million times higher in some spots than normal concentration," Kessler said. The 10-day cruise, which was funded by a National Science Foundation Rapid Response grant, returned June 21 with nearly 1 million data points gathered. Since that time, he and his colleagues have been analyzing the results in the shore-based lab at Texas A&M.
John Kessler, a chemical oceanographer in the College of Geosciences at Texas A&M University, is currently analyzing methane levels in water collected from seven miles to 500 meters from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead.
Preliminary results, he says, point to high concentrations of the gas. "Methane levels ranged from 10,000 to nearly 1 million times higher in some spots than normal concentration," Kessler said.
The 10-day cruise, which was funded by a National Science Foundation Rapid Response grant, returned June 21 with nearly 1 million data points gathered. Since that time, he and his colleagues have been analyzing the results in the shore-based lab at Texas A&M.
why, are they a million times normal too?
thanks for easing my concerns, :( ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
TBG implies that the amount of methane trapped in the Siberian permafrost easily exceeds that in the Gulf of Mexico, and I think I agree (based on no data :-) with his impression. By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan
They seem to be geysering away quite nicely.
So, any methane that isn't transported by rising oil to the daylight zone is unlikely to provide a problem for us in this geological cycle.
As TBG says, the accelerating release of the Siberian clathrates are the problem we're facing right now. keep to the Fen Causeway
