Tag: University of South Florida

Two weeks ago we were being told the majority of the Oil Spilled was “mostly” gone …

How did five million barrels of oil simply disappear?

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs points to a pie chart on the BP oil spill during the Daily White House Press Briefing, Washington, DC.

AFP/ Getty Images

Now, University of South Florida, Marine Scientists are reporting Science has a different tale, to tell …

Now for a little exercise in News Spin Cycles, vs the Scientific Process …

When the Facts, finally come in, IS Anyone even still Paying Attention?

“What we have learned completely changes the idea of what an oil spill is,” said chemical oceanographer David Hollander, one of three USF researchers credited with the matching samples of oil taken from the water with samples from the BP well. “It has gone from a two-dimensional disaster to a three-dimensional catastrophe.”

[…]

Together, the two studies confirm what in the early days of the spill was denied by BP and viewed skeptically by NOAA’s chief – that much of the crude that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon well stayed beneath the surface of the water.

[link to follow]

Lab tests confirm underwater layers of oil

Cain Burdeau, AP — June 4, 2010

Laboratory tests confirmed that oil from a spewing Gulf of Mexico well has accumulated in at least two extensive plumes deep under the surface, scientists with the University of South Florida said Friday.

USF researchers at a meeting in Baton Rouge said lab tests showed their initial findings, based on field instruments, were correct. The extensive layers of oil are sitting far beneath the surface miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The university is collecting data for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The lab tests are the most conclusive evidence yet in a vigorous scientific debate about where much of the oil from the growing spill in the Gulf of Mexico has ended up.

BP spokesman Mark Proelger said the company was awaiting further analysis of what is in the plumes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It’s too early to say whether any data indicates the plumes contain oil or not,” Proelger said.

Well then WAKE UP and smell the petro, Mark!

Since everything they try, to clean up the mess in the Gulf fails, BP CEO Tony Hayward has decided to take a different tact.

CEO Hayward has decided to “will away” the Oil by some sort of Divine Executive Fiat!

(Managing Billions of Dollars can inflate a person’s Ego sometimes, it seems.)

BP CEO disputes claims of underwater oil plumes

Associated Press — 05/30/2010

VENICE, La. – Disputing scientists’ claims of large oil plumes suspended underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC’s chief executive on Sunday said the company has largely narrowed the focus of its cleanup to surface slicks rolling into Louisiana’s coastal marshes.

During a tour of a BP PLC staging area for cleanup workers, CEO Tony Hayward said the company’s sampling showed “no evidence” that oil was suspended in large masses beneath the surface. He didn’t elaborate on how the testing was done.

Hayward said that oil’s natural tendency is to rise to the surface, and any oil found underwater was in the process of working its way up.

“The oil is on the surface,” Hayward said. “There aren’t any plumes.”

So that’s, THAT, then.

Here we go again.

Those Scientists are back out there, taking samples, plotting data, and Kicking Uncertainty’s Butt!

Underwater Oil Plume Discovered Near Mobile Bay

By Bobbie O’Brien — May 27, 2010

TAMPA — New tests show what appears to be a massive, second underwater plume in previously untested waters northeast of the leaking BP wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico.

Marine scientists have discovered a new, wide area of “dissolved hydrocarbons” in that Gulf. It is six miles wide and goes as deep as 3,300 feet.

More tests are being run, but researchers from the University of South Florida suspect the plume may be from chemical dispersants used to break up the gushing oil leak a mile below the surface.

They suspect the gunk to be Disperants, But HOW can you be sure — you can’t even see it!

Because for most of America, those Underwater Plumes won’t really exist, until they SEE them on the Evening News!