JUST LIKE I SAID: IT IS THE GOD DAMN METHANE HYDRATES STUPID

NSF

Almost from day one the evidence that the methane hydrates have seriously complicated the problems of this well blow out have been apparent. I mean hell, if an old retired geographer sitting in Oklahoma can read the message why the hell can't the people on site? Or have they?

If the relief wells have to be drilled though the same material.......God have mercy on all of us.

"Methane gas may cause 'dead zones' in Gulf"

source Wednesday, June 23, 2010

By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

"Levels of methane in deep-ocean waters near the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are 10,000 to 100,000 times higher than normal, and in some very hot spots "we saw them approaching 1 million times above" what would be normal, says ocean chemist John Kessler of Texas A&M University in College Station.

Kessler and a group of oceanographers from Texas and the University of California-Santa Barbara spent 10 days doing deep-water sampling from 35 different sites within 7 miles of the leak, close to the ocean floor.

The gases are coming up from the same geological layer as the oil, Kessler says.

The world is focused on the amount of oil being released, but the large quantifies of methane also are creating "a highly unusual situation" that's not going to go away anytime soon, says Peter Brewer, an ocean chemist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Monterey, Calif. Bacteria consuming the methane will "run rampant," using up all the oxygen and possibly creating localized dead zones."

My early tirades on this subject.

May 8 : It is the Methane Hydrates Stupid

May 14 :It is Still The Methane Hydrates Stupid

May 14: Now It is Official: It Is The Methane Hydrates Stupid

Now the real irony, the ultimate joke, is that the next headline that uses "Dead Zones" might be talking about about places above, in, on, or around the Gulf that if you go there you die. Funny huh?

Added: Here is the best general information article about Methane Hydrates and the BP Oil gusher that I have found: The Guardian on May 20th.