Oil found at a depth of 3,200 feet and up to 300 miles from "spill" site.

[G_j]

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1926000/bp_oil_still_present_in_ocean_300_miles_from_spill/index.html

BP Oil Still Present In Ocean 300 Miles From Spill Site

Posted on: Sunday, 3 October 2010, 07:10 CDT

According to new analysis, oil from a ruptured BP well in the Gulf of Mexico has been found at a depth of 3,200 feet and up to 300 miles form the spill site.

Scientists aboard Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise sampled areas affected by the oil spill for 10 days.

"From the measurements we've taken, we see clear signs of oxygen deficiency on a large transect starting at the Macondo wellhead, all the way 300 miles to the west," Rainer Amon, a Texas A&M scientist who participated in the research, told AFP News.

"How much of oil and gas components are still in the water is something that we need to now investigate in the laboratory.

..more..

[xchrom]

1. 3...2...1 -- from the 'I'm so glad the bacteria ate it all crowd. Nt

[jaxx]

2. From the Oil Drum:

<snip from comment> --Methane plumes: the team didn't find them this time; they must have "migrated." With insufficient time and O2 depletion for them to be gone, methane must be somewhere. She didn't address Hazen's suggestion that much of the methane is in hydrate form, suspended deep and very slowly rising.

--Oil plumes and sediment: most of the suspended oil stayed within 60 miles of DWH, to the west, north, and east. They collected control samples of sediment from 100 miles south, where the bottom was normal. Then they sampled from an 85 x 45 mile area around DWH and found fresh sediment at most sites. She twice said emphatically this sediment was "not oil," but a couple of times slipped into calling it "oil," as she had apparently done in statements to reporters, leading to headlines like "Researchers Find 2-Inch Blanket of Oil Covering Floor of Gulf."

--She described the sediment as an "organic matrix" containing "some oil" and a lot of "mucus" or marine snow. It is fluffy and porous, with a structure that collapses with any mechanical disturbance. It has a HC odor and irritates the skin. It contains tar flecks and some PAH and BTEX. It releases a slight sheen when stirred into clean water. Thickest deposit found was 4", usually 1-2".

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7012#comment-728523
_____________

What Janet Baran said was that NOAA hadn't found any visible oil--I take that to mean stuff that looks like oil. I'm sure nobody has found stuff that looks like oil in deep water. However, news coverage of remarks by Joye, Hollander, and others has led millions of people to think there is visible oil on the deep sea floor. I'm sure that if NOAA has sampled near the wellhead, they have found the same organic sediment that the Joye team found. I suspect Ian MacDonald knows all the above and is just being snarky.

Greenpeace is frankly an advocacy group and can't be expected to maintain high journalistic or scientific standards. I give them credit for immediately publicizing that they found no traces of oil in reef sponges in the Keys, and that they found the reef community of the Pinnacles off Alabama to be apparently in good shape.

However, this GP press release is pretty awful. They speak of "oxygen deficiency," which people are going to interpret as hypoxia, whereas actually there is only a slight and harmless reduction in deepsea oxygen so far. They give the impression of finding oil--and the press is reporting that they found oil--when actually they only found a reduction in oxygen. And their charges of dishonesty by the government are quite dishonest.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7012#comment-728530

[SoCalDem]

3. and people are SURPRISED?

WATER MOVES...and once it settles on the bottom, every creature in the food chain that forages bottom-food, will be endangered/contaminated..

and every severe storm will stir it all up and flush it onshore and up the river deltas..

[nashville_brook]

4. kickety. recety.

[felinetta]

5. Thank goodness that BP has promised to clean it all up. Asshats!