If you can read this, either the style sheet didn't load or you have an older browser that doesn't support style sheets. Try clearing your browser cache and refreshing the page.

(NPR) Interesting Scientists finally think they know where all of the oil from the BP spill went: the ocean floor. And it will takes years to figure out if this is a bad, good or neutral thing   (npr.org) divider line 68
More: Interesting  
•       •       •

5746 clicks; posted to Main » on 10 Sep 2010 at 8:58 PM   |  Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook   more»   |    Get this fabulous T-Shirt and impress the methane out of your friends! shirt it!



68 Comments   (+0 »)
   

Archived thread

First | « | 1 | 2 | » | Last | Show all
 
Asa Phelps [TotalFark]
2010-09-10 05:30:49 PM
We already knew that BP was injecting dispersants directly into the plume a mile down.

And we already know that the dispersants break down. Read the MSDS for corexit - then compare it to the MSDS for Dawn dish detergent.

We know this stuff breaks down in nature, and we know that there are bacteria that eat petroleum.

The known danger is that a bacterial flourish could deplete the oxygen in some part of the ocean, creating a dead zone.

There are already dead zones in the gulf of mexico, including the one right where ole man river pours in, which has been there for as long as anyone has ever bothered to know about it.

So far, this doesn't appear to be happening. Oxygen is down about 20% in the parts of the gulf where the oil probably is, which seems to indicate that it will return to normal eventually.

Do we know the long term effects of this much oil and dispersant in the ocean? there's no way we could know.

But we suspect it'll be ok.
 
Capitalist1
2010-09-10 05:45:10 PM
Asa Phelps: there's no way we could know.

We can't know about the effects of that volume of dispersant, but we absolutely do know the long-term effects of that much oil because this one is only in the neighborhood of the largest spills.

And, yes, it will be fine.
 
Hender
2010-09-10 06:27:03 PM
Neutral? Sound the beige alert.
 
Barakku
2010-09-10 06:48:56 PM
Hender: Neutral? Sound the beige alert.

Tell my wife I said hello
 
voltOhm [TotalFark]
2010-09-10 08:08:15 PM
All that natural petroleum will be just all cozy with all that natural methane ice down there, which by the way, is also a hydrocarbon. Nature loves her some hydrocarbons. One big hydrocarbon chemical soup orgy down on the bottom of the gulf, just like in the old days. A whole new ecosystem for nature to exploit.

"We have nothing to fear, but fear itself."- JFK
 
Big Al
2010-09-10 09:01:07 PM
If only we had LESS government regulation...
 
texdent [TotalFark]
2010-09-10 09:01:18 PM
www.thepensivecitadel.com

Just as long as this doesn't happen.
 
Goose4
2010-09-10 09:04:38 PM
It's going to be pretty hard to burn it all if it's on the bottom of the sea.
 
Gyrfalcon [TotalFark]
2010-09-10 09:04:43 PM
You mean we can't know exactly how everything is going to work out immediately today right now for sure????

i647.photobucket.com
 
moops
2010-09-10 09:05:28 PM
I think it's a chaotic neutral thing.
 
Mentalpatient87
2010-09-10 09:07:55 PM
voltOhm
That's an FDR quote, you farking idiot...
 
Max Bell
2010-09-10 09:10:19 PM
Nobody REALLY thought the bacteria nommed it all that fast, right?
 
Dubai Vol
2010-09-10 09:10:21 PM
voltOhm: All that natural petroleum will be just all cozy with all that natural methane ice down there, which by the way, is also a hydrocarbon. Nature loves her some hydrocarbons. One big hydrocarbon chemical soup orgy down on the bottom of the gulf, just like in the old days. A whole new ecosystem for nature to exploit.

"We have nothing to fear, but fear itself."- JFK

Your very name caused me to mark you as questionable. voltOhm? I can't find any way to make those terms appear together in that way. But by all means, enlighten me: what's a voltOhm?

But this post confirms that you really don't know what you're talking about. I even suspect you're a Limbaugh fan.
 
TommyDeuce
2010-09-10 09:11:37 PM
moops: I think it's a chaotic neutral thing.

My god, it's like we share a brain.

/You should be worried.
 
Porous Horace
2010-09-10 09:11:47 PM
Oil unto the breastazuh.
 
Gyrfalcon [TotalFark]
2010-09-10 09:13:29 PM
texdent: Just as long as this doesn't happen.

That would be pretty cool, actually...
 
Dubai Vol
2010-09-10 09:14:01 PM
Mentalpatient87: voltOhm
That's an FDR quote, you farking idiot...

Oh, I don't believe I missed that. Final nail in your coffin of ignorance, voltOhm. At least your ignorance is broad-based, encompassing both science AND history.
 
whenIsayGO
2010-09-10 09:15:52 PM
You guys really think that JFK thing was accidental? It's like a variation on the Helen Keller meme. It's all the rage.
 
Dubai Vol
2010-09-10 09:16:12 PM
Gyrfalcon: You mean we can't know exactly how everything is going to work out immediately today right now for sure????

i647.photobucket.comi647.photobucket.comi647.photobucket.com

Republicans do. Everything will be just fine. Feel better now?
 
Dubai Vol
2010-09-10 09:17:11 PM
whenIsayGO: You guys really think that JFK thing was accidental? It's like a variation on the Helen Keller meme. It's all the rage.

NIXON YOU DOLT!
 
picturescrazy
2010-09-10 09:24:15 PM
Barakku: Hender: Neutral? Sound the beige alert.

Tell my wife I said hello
Netflix streaming makes me happy.
 
Mad-n-FL
2010-09-10 09:27:38 PM
The Gulf; it's dead Jim.
 
BuckTurgidson
2010-09-10 09:29:57 PM
"Copious Amounts of Mucus" would be an OK name for a band. Or a Fark trolling alt account.
 
Coconice
2010-09-10 09:30:30 PM
/takes, i tells ya!
 
globalwarmingpraiser [TotalFark]
2010-09-10 09:32:09 PM
Mad-n-FL: The Gulf; it's dead Jim.

Funny I just saw some dolphins playing near Port Fourchon.
 
gamacrit
2010-09-10 09:32:19 PM
FTFA: Joye can't yet say with certainty that the oily layer is from BP's blown-out well.

I really enjoy the scientific thoroughness of this position.
 
dontevenknow
2010-09-10 09:33:39 PM
And it will takes years to figure out ...

Allow me to be the first to berate subby's grammar.
/grammar Nazi in training
//jump on the low-hanging fruit
 
Big Al
2010-09-10 09:37:59 PM
Who cares what some few hundred year old aristocrat said was the best way to speak English?
 
Coconice
2010-09-10 09:38:55 PM
Dubai Vol: voltOhm: All that natural petroleum will be just all cozy with all that natural methane ice down there, which by the way, is also a hydrocarbon. Nature loves her some hydrocarbons. One big hydrocarbon chemical soup orgy down on the bottom of the gulf, just like in the old days. A whole new ecosystem for nature to exploit.

"We have nothing to fear, but fear itself."- JFK

Your very name caused me to mark you as questionable. voltOhm? I can't find any way to make those terms appear together in that way. But by all means, enlighten me: what's a voltOhm?

But this post confirms that you really don't know what you're talking about. I even suspect you're a Limbaugh fan.

funny you should say this right now.

i don't normally think limbaugh, beck, and co are quite as stupid as most of fark does. but, i also am at work and do not listen to their shows.

today, i had to borrow my mom's. tuned to some amalgam of fox talk radio.

the hosts honestly had some (SOME) good points and a bunch of faulty logic. Much like their more liberal counter parts.

What struck me was the idiocy of the call in folk. i don't expect much from people that call into any radio show, but please, do not go out of your way to look stupid.
 
Coconice
2010-09-10 09:40:01 PM
car.

my mom's car.

shiat.
 
Big Al
2010-09-10 09:44:06 PM
Older people love to fall back on the emotions of hate and anger. They can vent all their frustration with life and channel it into voting for someone who laughs at their economic situation and who does everything to make it worse. Emotions are blinding. And don't forget being overcome with greed is an emotional problem as well.
 
BokerBill
2010-09-10 09:51:52 PM
Figuring all that out though, will probably take many years

Just so we keep in mind what is really important here: research grants!
 
Incontinent_dog_and_monkey_rodeo
2010-09-10 09:58:32 PM
Water dissolving...and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean!

Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
 
Dick_Hertz
2010-09-10 09:59:55 PM
voltOhm: All that natural petroleum will be just all cozy with all that natural methane ice down there, which by the way, is also a hydrocarbon. Nature loves her some hydrocarbons. One big hydrocarbon chemical soup orgy down on the bottom of the gulf, just like in the old days. A whole new ecosystem for nature to exploit.

"We have nothing to fear, but fear itself."- JFK BFD !!!
 
Dick_Hertz
2010-09-10 10:03:13 PM
Dubai Vol: voltOhm: All that natural petroleum will be just all cozy with all that natural methane ice down there, which by the way, is also a hydrocarbon. Nature loves her some hydrocarbons. One big hydrocarbon chemical soup orgy down on the bottom of the gulf, just like in the old days. A whole new ecosystem for nature to exploit.

"We have nothing to fear, but fear itself."- JFK

Your very name caused me to mark you as questionable. voltOhm? I can't find any way to make those terms appear together in that way. But by all means, enlighten me: what's a voltOhm?

But this post confirms that you really don't know what you're talking about. I even suspect you're a Limbaugh fan.

/Spoken like a Biden fan.
//Or, even Biden himself!
 
BuckTurgidson
2010-09-10 10:06:37 PM
Coconice: today, i had to borrow my mom's.

Everyone in the county has borrowed your mom's.

/oblig.
 
notmtwain [TotalFark]
2010-09-10 10:13:24 PM
Oil floats on water because it is less dense. So, we wouldn't expect to see oil on the bottom.

As the article says, it's oily sediment or mucus from oil-eating bacteria that have picked up some oil residues.
 
LabGrrl
2010-09-10 10:16:01 PM
Of course, there is always the small chance that in the presence of that much submerged oil (which will take quite a while to digest), the already there oil-munching bacteria (which will explode in number due to their new food source), could become some sort of super oil-munching bacteria, and, oh, find their way into the ocean water pumped into the oilfield by all the exploratory drilling, etc.
Then we'd never have to worry about an oil spill there again...
/not as unlikely as you might imagine.
 
Any Pie Left
2010-09-10 10:20:06 PM
If the oil plume is pooled at the ocean bottom... seems like a rig could hoover it up and filter the water out, and it would be easier than drilling... for a while. I drink your milkshake, as it were. Seems like an opportunity for some fast-moving engineering outfit. Must be too simplistic a notion; I'm sure I'm missing something... but what?
 
jondulars
2010-09-10 10:28:57 PM
Asa Phelps: We already knew that BP was injecting dispersants directly into the plume a mile down.

And we already know that the dispersants break down. Read the MSDS for corexit - then compare it to the MSDS for Dawn dish detergent.

We know this stuff breaks down in nature, and we know that there are bacteria that eat petroleum.

The known danger is that a bacterial flourish could deplete the oxygen in some part of the ocean, creating a dead zone.

There are already dead zones in the gulf of mexico, including the one right where ole man river pours in, which has been there for as long as anyone has ever bothered to know about it.

So far, this doesn't appear to be happening. Oxygen is down about 20% in the parts of the gulf where the oil probably is, which seems to indicate that it will return to normal eventually.

Do we know the long term effects of this much oil and dispersant in the ocean? there's no way we could know.

But we suspect it'll be ok.

But..but the Gulf Stream is gone---dead! What does this mean?
 
IamAwake
2010-09-10 10:31:02 PM
notmtwain: Oil floats on water because it is less dense. So, we wouldn't expect to see oil on the bottom.

As the article says, it's oily sediment or mucus from oil-eating bacteria that have picked up some oil residues.

that changes per temp, though - yeah? Water is unique in that it expands (thus becoming less dense...) as it cools. Oil on the other hand becomes more dense. I don't recall how pressure changes things, as well. But just keep in mind that the oil came out deeeeeep underwater, where it is is much colder and where there is a lot more pressure.
 
jondulars
2010-09-10 10:38:43 PM
There is no loop current. The Gulf Stream of warm water to the Atlantic is gone. Europe meet ice age.
 
olddinosaur
2010-09-10 10:49:19 PM
Those "scientists" ought to study some science.

There is a microbe in the ocean which eats crude oil, and remains dormant most of the time--but bear in mind, enough crude seeps up naturally so they can make a steady living.

However when there is a major rupture, those bugs multiply exponentially: eating and dividing, eating and dividing, until they gobble up all the oil.

Once that happens, they starve and are eaten in turn by small animals like diatoms and coepods, which in turn are eaten by little fish like herring and menhaden.

When the Ixtoc well blew in 1981, it spewed 10 times as much oil as the BP spill---and this was in Mexico, where the government doesn't give a sh*t about public opinion.

Things were back to normal in a year.
 
Still Itchy
2010-09-10 10:54:25 PM
LabGrrl: Of course, there is always the small chance that in the presence of that much submerged oil (which will take quite a while to digest), the already there oil-munching bacteria (which will explode in number due to their new food source), could become some sort of super oil-munching bacteria, and, oh, find their way into the ocean water pumped into the oilfield by all the exploratory drilling, etc.
Then we'd never have to worry about an oil spill there again...
/not as unlikely as you might imagine.

I want to believe you're onto something...but wouldn't feeding oil-munching bacteria all the farking oil they could possibly munch in a lab achieve the same result?
 
daGlandWizard
2010-09-10 10:54:46 PM
Big Al: If only we had LESS competent government regulation...

/FTFY
 
Oak
2010-09-10 11:00:14 PM
daGlandWizard: Big Al: If only we had LESS competent government regulation...

/FTFY

You fed the troll. No soup for you!
 
Summer Glau's Love Slave
2010-09-10 11:08:25 PM
R'lyeh's in the Pacific, right???

/Long as Cthulu don't wake up oily and pissed off
 
thenateman
2010-09-10 11:31:00 PM
Still Itchy: LabGrrl: Of course, there is always the small chance that in the presence of that much submerged oil (which will take quite a while to digest), the already there oil-munching bacteria (which will explode in number due to their new food source), could become some sort of super oil-munching bacteria, and, oh, find their way into the ocean water pumped into the oilfield by all the exploratory drilling, etc.
Then we'd never have to worry about an oil spill there again...
/not as unlikely as you might imagine.

I want to believe you're onto something...but wouldn't feeding oil-munching bacteria all the farking oil they could possibly munch in a lab achieve the same result?

Even if we had a lab at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, I'm sure the floor would be bacteria proof.
 
AccuJack
2010-09-10 11:32:19 PM
These scientists are wrong.

From my reading of the oil drum website, I know this obviously minimal oil layer must have come from the oil volcano that was predicted to form due to the well leaking. I don't know why no one's reporting on it, except that it might give Barak Hussein a black eye (not that you could tell).
 
CornFedIowan
2010-09-10 11:36:53 PM
Barakku: Hender: Neutral? Sound the beige alert.

Tell my wife I said hello

Came for this, leaving satisfied, except that texdent's post reminded me that WGN stops airing midnight TNG episodes tonight.
 
Displayed 50 of 68 comments

First | « | 1 | 2 | » | Last | Show all

Redisplay/refresh comments

This thread is closed to new comments.

Continue Farking
Submit a Link »
From the Fark Shop:
More from the Fark Shop »