A friend just mailed this to me Talk about a what if! Heres one for you. The Real Consequences of An

A friend just mailed this to me Talk about a what if! Heres one for you. **************************************************************The Real Consequences of An Ocean Floor Collapse

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:49 EDT

A collapse of the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico is in our near future but all depends on how such will occur. Two possible scenarios have been analyzed and described by several oceanographic institutions including the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) known for its in depth maritime expertise.

The two possible scenarios are either a complete collapse of the ocean floor right above the Deepwater Horizon well and surroundings or a partial collapse in the form of a mud slide on one side of the well.

The first scenario is unlikely at this time but remains a possibility given the number of crevices that have been created naturally due to the high pressure inside the well. This pressure is created by the large amount of methane gasses that is building up inside the well.

Should this scenario occur, then the prediction is that a vast amount of oil and methane will be released immediately into the water and towards the surface. The aftermath would be a tidal wave, caused by the fast displacement of a large amount of water that will reach the shores of all the Gulf States.

The immediate danger will be to cope with the height of the wave along the shoreline and not necessarily the mixture of oil and Corexit. Both products will obviously affect the local population in the aftermath of the tidal wave and during clean up.

The second scenario, a partial collapse of one side of the well in the form of a large mud slide, will cause a similar effect but to a far lesser extent given that the collapse will happen in a more or less slow motion fashion where water will replace oil and methane over a brief period of time.

A wave is expected to form off the Gulf Coast but will cause less damage and will be far less destructive.

Nevertheless, the impact on the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida will be enormous. The tourism industry represents a combined annual income of 150 billion dollars for Alabama and Florida. This industry has been hit hard and may not be able to recover within the next few years after a collapse.

The fishing and shrimping industry that represents the livelihood of small business owners will be affected for at least 10 years and maybe longer.

The ports of New Orleans, Pascagoula and Mobile are and will be inaccessible until the cleanup has been completed. The three ports rely on European and Asian trade for 50% of their annual revenue.

The environmental impact is hard to measure but one thing is certain; 80% of the world's dolphin population lives in the affected area of the Gulf of Mexico and the whale population migrates to the region to have their babies there.

The BP solution to place relief wells to pump out the oil and methane gas may seem like a good solution but it also represents serious dangers to the integrity of the well's surface and may cause further cracks and crevices to open.

For the time being this may be the only solution available and let's hope that the first scenario never occurs.
www.sott.net...

Interesting discussion, thanks for bringing it up.

I tend to lean towards scenario two, a partial collapse involving a mudslide type event.

But this also depends on a lot of factors, so really we will have to just wait and see...

And with things like this, I usually hate waiting around to find out how things turn out.

But I guess that is the fate of humanity. We just do not have sufficient data to determine what will actually happen as a result of all of this.

It really does, in the end, look entirely ridiculous and absurd.
*Humanity and our mistakes*.

reply to post by ddarkangle2bad


Wow , Reading the comments at the site under the article led me to do a search on geologist Jack Reed and I visited this article from 2002!
rift zone 11

Reed, a retired Texaco geologist-geophysicist who has been studying the region's geology for over 40 years, says the accepted theory of a quiet geologic evolution of the Gulf of Mexico Basin is fundamentally flawed and needs to be revised. According to him, the Gulf was and is tectonically active -- and it is the likely origin for not only the New Madrid seismic activity, but also for the Middleton Place-Summerville seismic zone near Charleston, S.C. "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.

Reed conducted a study using data from the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center and the USGS map "Earthquakes in the Conterminous United States." He only studied earthquakes measuring at least magnitude 5, and found that while most of the earthquake centers are random with no alignment, there is a well-defined earthquake trend extending northeastward from the New Madrid seismic zone across the United States to Canada, where it joins with the St. Lawrence River seismic zone.

Within the boundaries of this earthquake alignment there are:

* Sixty-one seismic points that have a magnitude of 5 and greater.
* Several large earthquakes dating to the early 1800s, all measuring over magnitude 8, all occurring within a couple of months of each other, all centered in a northeast trending line.
* The two 5+ earthquakes that occurred earlier this year in northern New York state and southern Indiana.

"There is definitely some form of movement occurring along this trend," Reed said, "and it appears to be active today."

As he continued that trend south of New Madrid he found that it was in line with the Monroe Uplift.

"Suddenly I could see that this area had doming much like I had seen at the Desoto Canyon in the Gulf," he said. "This entire zone through the United States is suffering some type of tectonic activity that I believe is tied to the deeply buried tectonics in the Gulf of Mexico."

Read the full article,makes the hair stand up on my neck to think
a) this article was written in 2002
b)So BP ( and hence u.s. admin) would have known the risks
c)We ain't seen nothing yet !
s+F

edit to say; no s+f sorry, can't seem to be able too.
edit the second to say; ah ha, fixed that problem
[edit on 22/6/10 by asIam]

[edit on 22/6/10 by asIam]