As I previously noted, oil industry expert Rob Cavner said that BP must "keep the well flowing to minimize oil and gas going out into the formation on the side":
Earth Changes
© The Register
The latest in scientific bottom-probing battery powered devices
The latest in scientific bottom-probing battery powered devices
British and international boffins, having probed an Antarctic glacier which is thought to be a major cause of rising sea levels worldwide, report that increased polar ice melting may not be driven by climate change.
The massive ice river in question is the Pine Island Glacier, aka PIG to those in the field.
"Estimates of Antarctica's recent contributions to sea level rise have changed from near-zero to significant and increasing," says Stan Jacobs of Columbia uni in the States. "Increased melting of continental ice also appears to be the primary cause of persistent ocean freshening and other impacts."
© Unknown
Spartina grasses with snails
Spartina grasses with snails
"The greatest threat is to the whole food chain, and the base of the food chain, said John Caruso, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at Tulane University. "People see the big impressive animals like pelicans and the other sea birds. It's a devastating sight, it tears you up when you see those poor birds covered in oil, but the real damage to our coastal ecosystem here will come from destruction of the cord grasses."
In particular, the cord and Spartina grasses that grow on the coast of Louisiana are crucial to the ecosystem and especially sensitive to the oil leak, Caruso said. These grasses form the foundation of the local food chain, and their root systems lessen the erosion of the small islands that protect inland Louisiana from hurricanes, Caruso said.
BP Funds Front Group Claiming Oil Spill Jobs Are Better Than 'Normal' Ones, Storm Will Clean Up Oil!
Shortly after BP's catastrophic oil spill in the gulf, the New York Times spoke to Quenton Dokken, the executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, about the environmental impact. "The sky is not falling," Dokken told the paper, adding "it isn't the end of the Gulf of Mexico." ProPublica dug into the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, and reported that the Times had failed to disclose that Dokken and his group are funded by a consortium of oil companies with business in the gulf, including companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon rig, Transocean and Anadarko. Today, the Times reported that the Foundation has been downplaying effects of the spill, possibly because of its funding from oil companies.
Stephanie Neumann holds a Northern Gannet
Animal health technician Stephanie Neumann tried to rescue the Northern Gannet, but beach safety officers stopped her. Her coworkers at the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge already had stabilized birds and a sea turtle affected by the Gulf oil disaster, but officials wanted to know: Did she have a contract with BP? Could she - and the bird - wait while they verified her organization's status?
"They're trying to do their job," Neumann said as she crouched over the motionless bird, wrapped in a white sheet and barely hidden from the stares of kids and parents. "They have to make sure protocol is followed."
© Greenpeace
Blair Mase, the Southeast marine mammal stranding coordinator for the oceanic agency, said that scientists were "very concerned" that oil was the cause of the whale's death, but that the whale's body was so decomposed and scavenged by sharks that it would be impossible to say for certain.
There are an estimated 1,700 sperm whales that live in gulf waters and they are known to congregate particularly at the mouth of the Mississippi River, a rich feeding ground. Unlike other whales, which travel long distances, these live full-time in the Gulf and do not usually mingle with sperm whale pods in the neighboring Caribbean and Sargasso Sea. Ms. Mase said that the dead whale was almost certainly a gulf whale.
© Jerry Moran
Dorsal Fin Encrusted with Oil in Barataria Bay
Dorsal Fin Encrusted with Oil in Barataria Bay
We were on the water with New Orleans photographer Jerry Moran and Reel Screamers Guide Service on June 11, when we noticed two groups of dolphins. One group was swimming through a bubbling slick consisting of the dispersant COREXIT and oil, and the other was in the shallows and rooting in the mud. Dolphins will dig for flounder on the bottom, so it did not seem remarkable at the time, but we did note that they appeared unusually agitated. The group swimming in the oily dispersant near our boat was sluggish but there was nothing we could do to discourage them from swimming there. Oil was everywhere, above and below the surface, and there was no escape. We shrugged it off, snapped a few photos, and went on to photograph oiled pelicans on Cat Island and Queen Bess.
© Benny F. Nielsen/AP Photo
A fin whale is seen stranded in a shallow fjord on the western coast at Vejle on the western coast of Denmark Wednesday June 16, 2010.
A fin whale is seen stranded in a shallow fjord on the western coast at Vejle on the western coast of Denmark Wednesday June 16, 2010.
A team of veterinarians, natural science experts and students have dissected most of the 58-foot (17.6-meter) whale, which died Sunday, Joachim Engel of Denmark's Natural History Museum said. Scientists will analyze its heart and other organs to establish the cause of death.
"That is what they will be trying to find out, whether it was sick. We don't know," biologist Anders Kofoed said.
The team dissected the animal on a pier in the Vejle Fjord, 135 miles (220 kilometers) west of Copenhagen, where the animal had been stranded since Wednesday.
© Thomas Lersch/Wikipedia
Common chimpanzee in the Leipzig Zoo.
Common chimpanzee in the Leipzig Zoo.
University of Michigan primate behavioral ecologist John Mitani's findings are published in the June 22 issue of Current Biology.
During a decade of study, the researchers witnessed 18 fatal attacks and found signs of three others perpetrated by members of a large community of about 150 chimps at Ngogo, Kibale National Park.
Then in the summer of 2009, the Ngogo chimpanzees began to use the area where two-thirds of these events occurred, expanding their territory by 22 percent. They traveled, socialized and fed on their favorite fruits in the new region.
Oil spill containment efforts could be putting strain on damaged well, New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 18, 2010:
Meanwhile, observers monitoring the video feeds from the robotic vehicles working on the sea floor have noticed BP measuring a tilt in the 40-ton blowout preventer stack with a level and a device called an inclinometer.
Odone, the BP spokesman, confirmed that his company has been monitoring the lean of the blowout preventer, which BP believes began tilting when the Deepwater Horizon rig sank and the riser pipe got bent. ...
Meanwhile, observers monitoring the video feeds from the robotic vehicles working on the sea floor have noticed BP measuring a tilt in the 40-ton blowout preventer stack with a level and a device called an inclinometer.
Odone, the BP spokesman, confirmed that his company has been monitoring the lean of the blowout preventer, which BP believes began tilting when the Deepwater Horizon rig sank and the riser pipe got bent. ...
