How the Gulf disaster could kill millions

In news reports today, we are discovering how violent methane is and how VERY much of it there is in the Gulf. And BP knew it.

"It is an overlooked danger in oil spill crisis: The crude gushing from the well contains vast amounts of natural gas that could pose a serious threat to the Gulf of Mexico's fragile ecosystem. The oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits, said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who is studying the impact of methane from the spill." "This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history," Kessler said."

Above, Discoverer Enterprise methane flare. photo source/credit
However, while the AP article looks at the devastating environmental aspects of the spill, this scientifically based article reveals the greater danger.

How the Gulf Oil Disaster Could Kill Millions
"Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—something far worse than the BP oil gusher. Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous. What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with two words: methane gas. Location of Deepwater Horizon oil rig was criticized more than 12 months ago some geologists rang the warning bell that the Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig might have been erected directly over a huge underground reservoir of methane. Documents from several years ago indicate that the subterranean geologic formation may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit. None other than the engineer who helped lead the team to snuff the Gulf oil fires set by Saddam Hussein to slow the advance of American troops has stated that a huge underground lake of methane gas—compressed by a pressure of 100,000 pounds per square inch (psi)—could be released by BP's drilling effort to obtain the oil deposit. Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi."

But wait...it gets worse. Much worse.

"The ultimate Gulf disaster, however, would make even those historical horrors pale by comparison. If the huge methane bubble breaches the seabed, it will erupt with an explosive fury similar to that experienced during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in the Pacific Northwest. A gas gusher will surge upwards through miles of ancient sedimentary rock—layer after layer—past the oil reservoir. It will explode upwards propelled by 50 tons psi, burst through the cracks and fissures of the compromised sea floor, and rupture miles of ocean bottom with one titanic explosion. The burgeoning toxic gas cloud will surface, killing everything it touches, and set off a supersonic tsunami with the wave traveling somewhere between 400 to 600 miles per hour."

The result would be that

"While the entire Gulf coastline is vulnerable, the state most exposed to the fury of a supersonic wave towering 100 feet or more is Florida. The Sunshine State only averages about 6 inches above sea level. A supersonic tsunami would literally sweep away everything from Miami to the panhandle in a matter of minutes. Loss of human life would be virtually instantaneous and measured in the millions. Of course the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and southern region of Georgia—a state with no Gulf coastline—would also experience tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of casualties..."

This is what could happen. Not to say that it will happen. However, the geologists who have studied this area warned that the methane deposit under where BP planned to drill was too unstable and contained larger than normal quantities of methane. That is a fact. So it is also a fact that the BP well exploded. It is a fact that the sea floor is cracked and ruptured. It is a fact according to the AP article that methane is leaking at a rate at which the BP containment ships cannot keep up with burning it and the gas is spilling into the gulf, leaving huge dead zones. Pray to God that the methane in the gulf, either in the water or under the unstable sea floor, doesn't explode, My mind can't conceive of the devastation ensuing from such a disaster. Is judgment about to be rendered unto this sinful nation?

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