Earth ChangesS

Binoculars

A Second Oil Spill in the Gulf

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© The Times-Picayune
A second leak, discovered at the Ocean Saratoga rig, is leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Initial reports claim the the volume of crude oil being released is much less than that of the Deepwater Horizon, but a 10 mile long oil slick has been detected by satellite. The site is visible in satelite images gathered by Skytruth.org, which first reported the leak on its website May 15.

The Ocean Saratoga site, owned by Taylor Energy, is located approximately ten miles off the coast of southern Louisiana. Official figures released report only 14 gallons of oil per day being emitted into the Gulf of Mexico to account for the massive oil slick.

Reports admit that small amounts have been leaking daily since Hurricane Ivan hit in 2004 causing an undersea mudslide that destroyed the rig. Taylor Energy says they have been working since that time to stop the leak.

Comment: See other article which reveal satellite images showing another oil leak in the Gulf.


Better Earth

Methane Eaters At Lost Hammer Lake

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© Dept. Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, MontrealThis is Lost Hammer Spring on Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut Territory, Canada.
Axel Heiberg Island, Canada -- Researchers at McGill's department of natural resources, the National Research Council of Canada, the University of Toronto and the SETI Institute have discovered that methane-eating bacteria survive in a highly unique spring located on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada's extreme North.

Lyle Whyte, McGill University microbiologist explains that the Lost Hammer spring supports microbial life, that the spring is similar to possible past or present springs on Mars, and that therefore they too could support life.

The subzero water is so salty that it doesn't freeze despite the cold, and it has no consumable oxygen in it. There are, however, big bubbles of methane that come to the surface, which had provoked the researchers' curiosity as to whether the gas was being produced geologically or biologically and whether anything could survive in this extreme hypersaline subzero environment.

"We were surprised that we did not find methanogenic bacteria that produce methane at Lost Hammer," Whyte said, "but we did find other very unique anaerobic organisms - organisms that survive by essentially eating methane and probably breathing sulfate instead of oxygen."

Better Earth

Oasis Near Death Valley Fed By Ancient Aquifer Under Nevada Test Site

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© UnknownBYU geology professor Steve Nelson at Ash Meadows
Every minute, 10,000 gallons of water mysteriously gush out of the desert floor at a place called Ash Meadows, an oasis that is home to 24 plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world.

A new Brigham Young University study indicates that the water arriving at Ash Meadows is completing a 15,000-year journey, flowing slowly underground from what is now the Nevada Test Site.

The U.S. government tested nuclear bombs there for four decades, and a crack in the Earth's crust known as the "Gravity Fault" connects its aquifer with Ash Meadows.

It will presumably be another 15,000 years before radioactive water surfaces at Ash Meadows, Nelson said. A more pressing issue for wildlife managers at Ash Meadows is the current decline in populations of Devil's Hole Pupfish and three other endangered fish species.

Bad Guys

Gulf Oil Leak May Be Bigger than BP Says

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill
© AP Photo/Charlie RiedelOil from the Deepwater Horizon spill pools against the Louisiana coast along Barataria Bay Tuesday, June 8, 2010.
New Orleans, Louisiana - While BP is capturing more oil from its blown-out well with every passing day, scientists on a team analyzing the flow said Tuesday that the amount of crude still escaping into the Gulf of Mexico may be considerably greater than what the government and the company have claimed.

Their assertions - combined with BP's rush to build a bigger cap and its apparent difficulty in immediately processing all the oil being collected - have only added to the impression that the company is still floundering in dealing with the catastrophe.

The cap that was put on the ruptured well last week collected about 620,000 gallons of oil on Monday and another 330,000 from midnight to noon on Tuesday and funneled it to a ship at the surface, said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man on the crisis. That would mean the cap is capturing better than half of the oil, based on the government's estimate that around 600,000 to 1.2 million gallons a day are leaking from the bottom of the sea.

Bizarro Earth

Gulf Oil Leak Causing Huge Upheaval In Marine Ecology

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© Samantha JoyeNot looking good
As oil continues to leak out of the collapsed Deepwater Horizon well head, researchers are beginning to collect data on how it is changing life in the Gulf of Mexico.

Earlier today, Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia in Athens spoke of what they are finding. She said that methane concentrations in a giant underwater plume emanating from the well head are as much as 10,000 times higher than background levels. The consequences of this for life in the gulf are unknown.

Joye was one of the first scientists to discover deep-water plumes emanating from the ongoing spill and recently returned from a two-week research expedition on board the research vessel F. G. Walton Smith. "It's an infusion of oil and gas that has never been seen before, certainly not in human history," she said earlier today, as she described her preliminary findings.

The plume is more than 24 kilometres long, 8 kilometres wide and 90 metres thick, and stretches from 700 to 1300 metres below the surface south-south-west of the collapsed Deepwater Horizon well head.

Bizarro Earth

US: Seniors Prepare for 'The Big One'

Seal Beach - Although experts say it will be sometime in the next 20-plus years, seniors in Leisure World want to prepare now for the big earthquake that has been all but guaranteed by experts to hit Southern California.

Residents in the community have set up the Planning for Emergency Preparedness Foundation to help gather supplies, draw up emergency response plans and offer residents survival tips for when a major earthquake hits.

The group is holding its first meeting on Wednesday, which will include David Bowman, chair of the Geological Sciences Department at Cal State Fullerton as the keynote speaker.

"In this major regional quake, police, fire, the Red Cross and other emergency services will be spread too thin to get to us for a minimum of a week," said Scott McIntyre, the group's vice president. "They are telling us we must be ready to take care of ourselves. We would be foolish not to prepare."

The U.S. Geological Survey has predicted the southern part of the San Andreas Fault, which runs 100 miles from San Bernardino to San Diego, has been quiet for nearly 300 years, according to National Geographic Magazine.

Bizarro Earth

Philippines: Taal Volcano on Alert Level 2

Manila - The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology on Tuesday raised the alert level status of Taal Volcano from alert level 1 to alert level 2 as it is showing signs of possible eruption.

On its website, Phivolcs said it has noticed "anomalous change" since the last week of April.

Among its observations were increased and intensifying volcanic earthquakes, including a low frequency type volcanic earthquake detected on June 2; raised temperature in the main crater lake; raised ground temperatures; intensified steaming of the main crater; and inflating of the volcano.

"The recorded high frequency volcanic earthquakes could be the result of active rock fracturing associated with magma intrusion beneath the volcano. The fractures served as passageways through which hot gases from the intruding magma could escape into the main crater lake," the institute said.

Bizarro Earth

Well cap captures more oil, but outlook's gloomy

A dead turtle floats on a pool of oil
© AP Photo/Charlie RiedelA dead turtle floats on a pool of oil from the Deepwater Horizon

New Orleans, Louisiana - The cap on the blown-out well in the Gulf is capturing a half-million gallons a day, or anywhere from one-third to three-quarters of the oil spewing from the bottom of the sea, officials said Monday. But the hopeful report was offset by a warning that the farflung slick has broken up into hundreds and even thousands of patches of oil that may inflict damage that could persist for years.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the crisis, said the breakup has complicated the cleanup.

"Dealing with the oil spill on the surface is going to go on for a couple of months," he said at a briefing in Washington. But "long-term issues of restoring the environment and the habitats and stuff will be years."

Blackbox

Senator: Deepwater Well Integrity May Be Shot, Meaning Oil Could Be Leaking Straight Up From The Seabed

This may be the real nightmare scenario in the Gulf. Some have speculated that the inner integrity of the Deepwater well could be blown (not just the top) and that oil could be leaking out from the side, making it hard to imagine how you might go about plugging the thing.

On MSNBC today, Senator Bill Nelson said he'd heard such report, and is looking into such things. Let's hope not. The following clip comes from FireDogLake.

Cow Skull

Scientists Find Evidence of 2nd Oil Plume

oil explosion
© U.S. Coast Guard
Tampa, Florida - University of South Florida scientists say they discovered a second oil plume in the Gulf of Mexico arising from BP's broken oil well on the gulf floor.

The scientists concluded that microscopic oil droplets are forming deep-water oil plumes, CNN reported Monday. The second recently discovered plume was in the northeastern gulf; the first plume was found by Mississippi scientists in May.

"These hydrocarbons are from depth and not associated with sinking, degraded oil but associated with the source of (BP's) Deepwater Horizon wellhead," USF Chemical Oceanographer David Hollander. "We've taken molecular isotopic approaches, which is like a fingerprint on a smoking gun."