In addition to the many ongoing health concerns the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico creates, another little item seems to be getting little attention; Tectonics.
Tectonics isn’t exactly a fast moving discipline, so to speak, in fact, it moves rather slow unless you’re timing it in geological terms or standing next to an active volcano. And if you are standing next to a volcano then you are standing on the edge of a tectonic plate. While you may not fall off the edge very soon, you will eventually get shaken about a bit because these tectonic plates move, or to be exact, float.
There are about 8 of these plates that float around on the Earth driven by the motion of molten materials in the mantle. (say that 3 times fast…) In simple terms, they drive together to form mountain ranges, spread apart to create chasms, or rub up against each other to be a general pain in the Earth’s butt. In all cases earthquakes happen because this movement overcomes the friction between the plate materials and a ‘snap’ occurs that relieves the stress.
The gulf isn’t known for its seismic activity like the west coast and the associated “Ring of Fire” demarking the pacific plate but recent geological research suggests that the gulf is part of a larger ‘network’ of faults.
From the American Association of Petroleum Geologists;
“For all the years I have worked the Gulf of Mexico Basin I have been forced to accept the ‘passive’ Gulf formation theory, which holds that the only movement in the basin is updip sedimentary loading that moved the salt southward,” Reed said. “But there is little evidence to support this theory, and it doesn’t fit what is observed geologically or geophysically.
“As Hugh Wilson said (1993), ‘It would be geologically unusual for such a large basin as the Gulf of Mexico to remain almost tectonically undisturbed for 170 million years while major orogenic disturbances repeatedly struck bordering areas.’”
Reed, over the years, has gathered evidence that supports plate motion in the Gulf basin. Thick salt and sedimentary sequences in the basin mask this tectonic motion, but there is enough basin and peripheral evidence to show plate readjustment is occurring — evidence, he says, in the form of volcanics, earthquakes and rift zones that are accompanied by magnetic, refraction, seismic and gravity data.
I can hear you asking, “So, Sacred Calf, what does this have to do with plugging up the BP oil spill?” You mean, besides the geological curve balls this tosses into the drilling mix? Quite a bit when you consider that one of the ideas being floated to plug the leak is to bomb it.
The idea has been kicked around for weeks on blogs and talk shows and at a cocktail parties. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), for example, said this on an Atlanta radio show last week: “For the life of me, I can’t understand why BP couldn’t go into the ocean floor … drill a few holes and put a little ammonium nitrate, some dynamite, in those holes and detonate that dynamite and seal that leak. And seal it permanently.”
Don’t get me wrong here, there are plenty of things that need a good bombing; smug Prius owners, vuvuzela factories, and vampire romance novelists are 3 that come to quick mind. Bombing a high-pressure hole a mile underwater on or near a possible fault line doesn’t seem to be a good idea, though.
Politics’ and physics’ proximities only come close to each other in the alphabet, apart from there any commonality ends. A physicist is almost universally apolitical and a politician is notoriously scientifically challenged.
Consider the political call for nuking the well. In mining, and I am no expert by any means, explosives are used to loosen and pulverize rock in order to get to the desired ore. So, we have a pipe spewing heavy crude under high pressure and the idea is to pulverize the rock around the hole in the hope that it will fall into the hole and plug it. Never mind the side fact of this being a mile underwater which would affect the settle pattern and rate of the disturbed rock and sediment. The potential of the well’s flow rate to simply blast through this plug attempt is large and the possibility of the hole enlarging and becoming even more unmanageable is somewhere around huge.
A partial collapse of the wellbore would not staunch the flow, but it would prevent drillers from getting back into the wellbore to try a more conventional kill approach.
“It’s an all-or-nothing proposition,” [Paul] Eustes [a petroleum-engineering professor at the Colorado School of Mines] warned.
Then, of course, there’s the nuclear fallout, not all of it confined to the waters of the gulf (and let’s not forget our friend, evaporation) or the potential of it setting off an earthquake that could effect even more millions of people.
My thinking is that we need to try another “junk shot”. While I imagine it will work just as well as the first one, which is to say, not at all, we can solve a few problems even so. Instead of golf balls and pieces of rubber, we should consider new materials such as Tony Hayward, Investment Bank executives, Phil Gramm (he helped repeal Glas-Steagel), and just to show that the Obama administration is serious, Tim Geithner. (don’t get me started about him…) For good measure and to insure the tight fit required, Rush Limbaugh would be a most excellent offering to the well gawds also. Give him an oxy and his suitcase of viagra and he wouldn’t move either…
Read more:
Deepwater Horizon lies on tectonic fault line causing earthquakes
5.2 Earthquake Dead Center In Gulf Of Mexico (Good blog post from 2006)
Filed under: General Tagged: Gulf Coast, oil, techtonics
