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To: tejek who wrote (567339)	5/21/2010 7:35:42 AM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 1576167

Satellite pics of oil slicks in the GOM. Note however these pics are from 2006 and are from natural oil seeps: earthobservatory.nasa.gov Although accidents and hurricane damage to infrastructure are often to blame for oil spills and the resulting pollution in coastal Gulf of Mexico waters, natural seepage from the ocean floor introduces a significant amount of oil to ocean environments as well. Oil spills are notoriously difficult to identify in natural-color (photo-like) satellite images, especially in the open ocean. Because the ocean surface is already so dark blue in these images, the additional darkening or slight color change that results from a spill is usually imperceptible. Remote-sensing scientists recently demonstrated that these “invisible” oil slicks do show up in photo-like images if you look in the right place: the sunglint region. This pair of images includes a wide-area view of the Gulf of Mexico from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on May 13, 2006 (top), and a close up (bottom) of dozens of natural crude oil SEEPS over deep water in the central Gulf. The washed-out swath running through the scene is where the Sun is glinting off the ocean’s surface. If the ocean were as smooth as a mirror, a sequence of nearly perfect reflections of the Sun, each with a width between 6-9 kilometers, would appear in that line, along the track of the satellite’s orbit. Because the ocean is never perfectly smooth or calm, however, the Sun’s reflection gets blurred as the light is scattered in all directions by waves. The slicks become visible not because they change the color of the ocean, but because they dampen the surface waves. The smoothing of the waves can make the oil-covered parts of the sunglint area more or less reflective than surrounding waters, depending on the direction from which you view them. The usual technique for mapping oil slicks from space uses radar, which bounces pulses of radio waves off the wave-roughened surface of the water and detects the amount of backscattered energy. The downside of using space-based radars to map oil slicks is that they don’t provide routine coverage of large areas, and oil slicks may evaporate or disperse significantly within a day. The researchers suggest that tracking oil slicks in the wide sunglint region of daily Terra and Aqua MODIS images may be a better avenue for comprehensive, near-real-time monitoring of large oil spills and natural SEEPS in marine ecosystems. References Hu, C., Li, X., Pichel, W.G., and Muller-Karger, F. E. (2009). Detection of natural oil slicks in the NW Gulf of Mexico using MODIS imagery. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L01604. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data obtained from the Goddard Level 1 and Atmospheric Archive and Distribution System (LAADS). Caption by Rebecca Lindsey. Instrument: Terra - MODIS earthobservatory.nasa.gov earthobservatory.nasa.gov

To: tejek who wrote (567339)	5/21/2010 7:38:15 AM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1576167

Scientists Find That Tons Of Oil Seep Into The Gulf Of Mexico Each Year ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2000) — Twice an Exxon Valdez spill worth of oil SEEPS into the Gulf of Mexico every year, according to a new study that will be presented January 27 at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. But the oil isn't destroying habitats or wiping out ocean life. The ooze is a natural phenomena that's been going on for many thousands of years, according to Roger Mitchell, Vice President of Program Development at the Earth Satellite Corporation (EarthSat) in Rockville Md. "The wildlife have adapted and evolved and have no problem dealing with the oil," he said. Oil that finds its way to the surface from natural SEEPS gets broken down by bacteria and ends up as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. So knowing the amount of fossil fuel that turns to carbon dioxide naturally is important for understanding how much humans may be changing the climate by burning oil and gas. Using a technique they developed in the early 1990s to help explore for oil in the deep ocean, Earth Satellite Corporation scientists found that there are over 600 different areas where oil oozes from rocks underlying the Gulf of Mexico. The oil bubbles up from a cracks in ocean bottom sediments and spreads out with the wind to an to an area covering about 4 square miles. "On water, oil has this wonderful property of spreading out really thin," said Mitchell. "A gallon of oil can spread over a square mile very quickly." So what ends up on the surface is an incredibly thin slick, impossible to see with the human eye and harmless to marine animals. When oil spreads out over water, surface tension causes it to act like a super-thin sheet of Saran Wrap, flattening down small waves on the ocean surface. To spot the oil slicks, EarthSat scientists use radar data from Canadian and European satellites. The oil slicks stand out in the radar image because they return less of the radar signal than the wavy surfaces. To get an estimate of how much oil SEEPS into the Gulf each year, the researchers took into account the thickness of the oil-only a hundredth of a millimeter, the area of ocean surface covered by slicks, and how long the oil remains on the surface before it's consumed by bacteria or churned up by waves. "The number is twice the Exxon Valdez's spill per year, and that's a conservative estimate," said Mitchell. With funding from NASA, EarthSat researchers began this work in the early 1990s using Landsat satellite and radar data to identify marine oil SEEPS for petroleum exploration. The method has had amazing success. Drilling for oil in the ocean is extremely expensive, and with radar data, oil companies have a much better shot at finding oil deposits. In the future, EarthSat hopes to refine this method using data from NASA's new EO-1 satellite, set for launch in June 2000. A sensor aboard EO-1 may be able to tell gas from oil and better pinpoint the source of the slick. sciencedaily.com This means the BP spill is temporarily putting about 3 times as much oil in the GOM each day as nature is on its own. Of course, natural SEEPS are widely distributed and not point sourced like BP's spill is. Though BP's spill is going to be a short term input, the natural SEEPS have been and will continue going on for millions of years.

To: tejek who wrote (567339)	5/21/2010 7:40:43 AM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576167

ESTIMATES OF GLOBAL INPUTS OF OIL TO THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT In a report published in 2002 by the National Research Council (NRC) of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the average total worldwide annual release of petroleum (oils) from all known sources to the sea has been estimated at 1.3 million tonnes. However, the range is wide, from a possible 470,000 tonnes to a possible 8.4 million tonnes per year. According to the report, the main categories of sources contribute to the total input as follows: * natural seeps: 46% * discharges from consumption of oils (operational discharges from ships and discharges from land-based sources): 37% * accidental spills from ships; 12% * extraction of oil: 3% .... oils.gpa.unep.org From 1971 to 2000, offshore facilities and pipelines were responsible for only 2 percent of the oil in U.S. waters. The bulk of it (63 percent) came from natural seepage, and 22 percent came from municipal and industrial runoff. Worldwide, natural seepage is the largest source (47 percent) of oil in water, followed by spills from ocean transportation (33 percent). In short, the risk of oil spills from platforms is small. In contrast, there are relatively high environmental costs associated with importing oil as opposed to producing it in the United States. There are three problems with importing oil: First, spills from tankers and barges are the largest human-caused source of oil in the oceans. Oil is more likely to be spilled from a tanker than from a platform, and tankers have the potential to cause catastrophic spills. .... Message 26432875

To: tejek who wrote (567339)	5/21/2010 7:41:34 AM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 1576167

There's about 660 quadrillion gallons in the Gulf of Mexico. That's sea water. Quadrillion is a one followed by 15 zeros. Assuming 210,000 gallons per day for 30 days gets 6,300,000 gallons to date. Subtracting for evaporation and recovery there's probably about 4M gallons of oil from Maconda in the Gulf. That comes out to 1 gallon of oil per 165,000,000,000 gallons of sea water. Trace amounts are often measured in ppm. We're at about 1 part per 165 billion so far.