Gulf Oil Leak... Not So Dramatic After All

So yesterday we hear from no less than the U.S Government,  that the oil spill in the Gulf is...  75% cleared up already.  And despite all the wailings and gnashings of teeth only a month or so ago,  about the enviroment being "ruined for decades to come" and "the worst ecological disaster ever to hit America" and such hysterics,  we hear that the actual amount of oil leaked was about 5 million barrels, or 200 million gallons. 


And what is the sea volume of the Gulf itself  ?      Well.... actually it's 693 Quadrillion gallons..   er..yes, that's 693 million-billion gallons... or if you prefer,  693 thousand-trillion gallons..... or  just plain old 693,000,000,000,000,000 gallons  (as compared with 200,000,000 gallons of oil).   


Rather a lot less noughts in the latter figure.  In fact, scaling the Gulf to an Olympic-sized swimming pool, this is like tipping just about one cupful of oil, into the deep end.    Not quite so devastating as earlier implied.


More importantly than the bald figures,  what is crucially different about the Deepwater Horizon spill is that it leaked from more than a mile down in the ocean,  rather than on the surface, which is where most spills occur - when tankers break up or hit reefs.    In the many major oil tanker disaters, like the Prince William sound spill of years ago, the oil was released right at the surface in those cases - so it ALL floated on top, causing great thick surface slicks which sloshed over huge areas of shoreline, choking and killing creatures in the tens of thousands. 


But down in the Gulf, most of the oil has been streaming out at huge depth, drifting away in every direction as it slowly surfaced:  so it has been truly distributed through quite a lot of that vast 693 Quadrillion gallons.   Add to that the fact that it is warm, and the oil light,  it is evaporating and being consumed by ocean organisms massively faster than in the cold north of Prince William sound.  


Perhaps the earth won't crack in two then. 
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/science/earth/04oil.html