Have we ever had an uncapped gusher like this run this long?

[Stuart G]

This looks like the mother of all gushers. Imagine if this were on land? Allowed to go on and on for 30 days? Imagine the photos of everything around it?
Have we ever experienced something like this before? Anywhere?

[Desertrose]

1. If it were on land we could most likely FIX IT!

or at least get to it easier...

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Sarah?

:shrug:

[justabob]

3. yes... someone posted about it today, Mexico in the 70s, I think

I will find the post

edit:

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8405795

[Go2Peace]

16. We are at least halfway there but will surpass it in less than a month

That is if the "official" figures are honest, which it seems may not be.

[damntexdem]

28. And since the official figure is something like ten times too low, ...

This one has likely surpassed the Mexico spill at least five times over.

[Stuart G]

4. Was the disaster of the oil wells set on fire after the Gulf War

this bad? I don't know. I am just asking what a lot of people are asking.

[silverback]

14. There was a spill during the gulf war in the gulf...

About 11 million barrels, largest spill in history, nearly three times as big as Ixtoc.

[MyNameGoesHere]

21. That brought up some bad memories

I am sure it is hard to define worse in cases like this, but not seeing the sun for nearly a month because of the oil fires was surreal to me. The ground was like a lake of oil. Face masks had to be changed almost every hour and I still blew oil snot out my nose. I guess from a graphic point of view it seemed worse. I will never forget that. Words cannot even describe it. If I believed in the biblical hell, lakes of fire and all that, this was the closest I came to hell.

[paparush]

5. One DUer replied to a post I made earlier: Australia well - 10 weeks

It took Australia 10 weeks and five relief wells...

to stop the Montara oil spill

The Australian accident, known as the Montara spill, began Aug. 21 with a blowout of high-pressure oil similar to the one in the gulf. With the well spewing 17,000 to 85,000 gallons per day, precious weeks passed before the relief wells were started. When efforts got under way, the first four attempts — drilled on Oct. 6, 13, 17 and 24 — missed the original well.

A fifth attempt finally intersected the original on Nov. 1, and about 3,400 barrels of heavy mud were pumped through the relief well into the base of the original well. The spewing oil finally stopped Nov. 3 — more than 10 weeks after the original explosion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/us/03montara.html

[Stuart G]

7. Thanks, for posting..any additional info would be appreciated..

This thing is getting to all of us. From many previous threads it looks like it will not be stopped till August. Ten weeks more. Ug

[Kali]

6. ...

Mexico recalls a similar oil disaster
1979 blowout gushed for months, devastating Gulf
by Chris Hawley - May. 24, 2010 12:00 AM
Republic Mexico City Bureau

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/05/24/20100524mexico-oil-disaster.html

[Stuart G]

10. The link above..by Kali....excellent read.. another blowout 9 months !!!!

Oh my God?...and God has nothing to do with it..

[meow mix]

8. judging from the 2 growing lakes of oil soon to be 3... this is a much bigger gusher

its pooling up in the loop eddys at an alarming rate. much more oil than anyone will care to admit.

[closeupready]

18. That's what I think - it must be two or three times as big as Ixtoc. Thus, the window is proportion

proportionately smaller in terms of time running out.

[SidDithers]

9. Ixtoc 1 gushed from June 1979 to March 1980...

spilling 140 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico.

Sid

[WeDidIt]

11. Ixtoc 1 spewed crude into the gulf for nine months.

The well head was nowhere near as deep beneath the surface of the Gulf, but the well itself was deeper than Deepwater Horizon.

It ultimately spewed 140 million gallons of crude into the Gulf.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

12. Lakeview Gusher - March 14, 1910 - 9,000,000 barrels - 18 months

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakeview_Gusher

[paparush]

13. Wikipedia link for the Ixtoc spill-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc

[Statistical]

15. Yup. Montara (Austrailia) = 3 months, Ixtoc (Mexico) = 9 months, Nowruz (Iran) = 26 months

Also keep in mind all three of were not as deep.
Both in terms of ocean depth but also drill depth (which determines drilling time).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8406661

[zazen]

17. and we're at how many est. gallons now? did other gushers cause extinctions?

I must admit if this much has gotten into the Gulf before, I feel a little less like the world is coming to an end (in the next 12 months, as opposed to the next 12 decades).

Granted, in the early 80s, we were dependent on mainstream news to report these effects, so the populace was a lot less informed. What was the environmental impact? Does anyone remember these being widely reported? I remember the Valdez, but that's all.

[Common Sense Party]

19. Some guy on NPR said that organisms in the Gulf just consumed

the oil from that spill. I have no idea if that's true.

[Statistical]

20. Its true.

A lot of oil leaks into the Gulf from natural fissures. It has for millions of years. As a result micro organisms have evolved to feed on raw crude oil. I guess you could consider it a planetary immune system.

Still the amount of oil released will determine the amount of time it takes to "eat" the oil.

http://esciencenews.com/sources/scientific.blogging/2008/09/10/hydrocarbon.eating.microbes.mean.oil.was.an.ancient.energy.source.too

[Common Sense Party]

26. Thanks for the link. The guy on NPR said everyone was amazed

by how quickly the 1979 spill was eaten up.

I guess the Gulf being warmer waters probably has something to do with it?

[Statistical]

27. I would imagine so.

I figure those hydrocarbon digester simply exploded in population.
Warm (microbe friendly waters) combined with massive source of energy.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

29. EDIT... NVM

I was talking about a different oil spill

[silverback]

24. It depends on which estimates you believe...

IMO, the most credible estimates are between 60-80K BPD, which would mean we're roughly on a par with the Ixtoc spill as of today, but since it'll likely be months before the spill is over there's a good possibility this spill could exceed the Gulf war oil spill in the Persian Gulf (not the wells on fire, the spill) before it's over.

Ixtoc did some damage but it really wasn't a disaster, the gulf war spill had significant impacts on wildlife and coastlines but it was contained in a smaller body of water, and of course the coasts were mostly desert.

The impact on the gulf coast can be expected to be far worse than either of those spills, the risk to ocean life is more difficult to guess at, but it's unlikely there'll be mass kills or anything like that, it's mostly a coastal problem. Of course with hurricane season starting there's another big worry... if a storm surge should happen at just the wrong time we'd have no way of protecting wetlands and estuaries, it could really be bad.

[Statistical]

25. Also it depends on if you believe the estimates of Ixtoc I.

The Mexican government had ample reason to low ball their estimates due to the fact that they were sued by Texas for damages (never paid BTW).

[Statistical]

22. Here is a natural gas "gusher" which has been burning for 37 years (not a typo)

The doorway to Hell. I would like to visit it if I ever got the chance.

[handmade34]

23. good info from NOAA

http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2010/0524/How-bad-is-Gulf-oil-spill-A-global-Q-A-on-offshore-oil-spills