Bacteria chows down on remaining oil spill in Gulf

LinuxGold said:
Lets look at this the other way around.

Lets say the ground under water is the part that provides oxygen INTO the water.

Put the plastic blanket across that ground.

What happens to the MASSIVE water above that area?

Now -- back to discussion, let's forget about how many gallons of water covered, since oil falls down to the ground.

How much sq ft of FLOOR is there in Gulf AND how much oil is covering that area?

How much of oxygen is blocked because of that?
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The ground underwater does not provide oxygen to water above. Believe me. I don't know where you got that idea. Water naturally contains dissolved oxygen. The more mixing action the more oxygenated the water becomes.
 
kokonut said:
Not the same scale. Nor the same thing. And what is the volume of the swimming pool are we talking about to the volume of this "dump"?
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18 x 36 feet with a volume of 16,427 gallons.
 
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The real question is, is it harmful to marine life? The discussion of volume by oil in water is moot when it comes to the fish kills. Something doesn't add up, fish kills versus claims of harmlessness.
 
kokonut said:
The estimated volume amount of water in the Gulf of Mexico is 643 quadrillion gallons or 643,000,000,000,000,000 gallons.
General Facts about the Gulf of Mexico | GMPO | US EPA

The estimated volume amount of oil spilled: 206 million gallons.
washingtonpost.com

A little math here. 643,000,000,000,000,000:206,000,000 = 3,121,360,000 gallons of Gulf of Mexico water to 1 gallon of oil spilled. A ratio of 3,121,360,000:1.

About 57,000 drops of water amount to 1 gallon of water. In this case it'd be the equivalent of having 55,000 gallons of water with one drop of oil in it by scale. (3,121,360,000 gallons/57,000 drops = 55,000 gallons/1 drop).
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looks good on paper but how about the reality? birds drenched in oil... dead fish floating... ain't looking good there, bubba.
 
Banjo said:
18 x 36 feet with a volume of 3,910 gallons.
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Then that "dump" would be 1/14th of the size of one drop. About the equivalent of a fleck of fecal matter floating around in your pool. Something you wouldn't noticed. Then again we're talking about oil not human feces.
 
Beowulf said:
The real question is, is it harmful to marine life? The discussion of volume by oil in water is moot when it comes to the fish kills. Something doesn't add up, fish kills versus claims of harmlessness.
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Depends on the amount of oil we're talking about. Some marine life on the bottom of the seafloor next to naturally leaking oil do thrive on it and depend on it as an energy source.

Again, my math was to show the scale size of the oil spill to that of the Gulf of Mexico. Certainly there are fish kills and such but where are the news of hoards of fish washing ashore daily? I never did say oil was completely harmless to marine life. It is just the amount of oil over time that is in question here. In this case, it was too much but over time the volume amount of oil has dispersed and is latching onto floating marine sediments which will eventually settled elsewhere.
 
Beowulf said:
His intention is to deliberately lie about the oil spill damage. Of course I take issue to it.
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No. I've already acknowledged elsewhere that damage has occurred. Just that we need to focus our efforts closer to shore and in the estuary and not out in the ocean where most of the oil spill is located. Clean up is good but we can only do so much. Nature does the rest. I said this time and time again. What'sa matter? Got a pinecone up your arse or what?
 
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