Phony locations being reported by ROVs?

After looking at the videos showing seafloor leaks after the testing began, I tried to locate where the leaks were using googlemaps and the latitudes and longitudes being reported by the ROVs. At least I assumed the figures arked with E and N were location figures.

The locations as reported are:

1202626...E
1043171...N

most of the recorded locations are centered around this area.

But if you plug them in to a finder, no matter where you put the decimal point, yo wind up nowhere near the Gulf.

What's going on? Am I misreading the figures, do the E and N markers on the feeds not mean EAST and NORTH? If not marking longitude and latitude, what are they?

Or is it misinfo to hide the locations of the leaks?

I'm baffled...

Anyone here who can clear this up? If anyone can translate those figures on the ROVs to a Gulf location, I'd really appreciate it. Perhaps I'm paranoid becuase BP has lied so much already, but it wouldn't surprise me if those location figures are bogus.

Can anyone find where the ROVs are actually filming?

Looks like degrees, minutes and seconds to me, but I am not sure if the E and N are in relation to the azimuth of the well or actural north and south pole...Sorry if I couldnt help...

reply to post by Ophiuchus 13


Yes, I assumed that that is what the numbers reflected.

I hadn't thought that they might be in relation to the location of the well, thanks for that input. Strikes me that if it is in relation to the well, that would be unnecessarily complicated, although a good way to obsfucate the issue.

I'm not sure how to work out the offset if that is the case, though.

reply to post by apacheman


Find Lat. and Long. of the well and try and pin point from that location, if they are tied to well location if not then I have no clue what those numbers represent.... Insane how much of this issue remains in the clouded area.

Use this calculator here: BP Gulf Oil Spill ROV UTM Distance Calculator The Deepwater Leak location is already plugged in. Just ad the E, N, coordinates into the second section. Also the tool does not work for long distances like referencing the ROVs say from New Orleans. They only work from the well point.

reply to post by apacheman


I'm glad you posted this because I tried the same thing earlier... Can't wait to see if someone knows the answer.

Originally posted by apacheman
BP has lied so much already, but it wouldn't surprise me if those location figures are bogus.

With BP, it wouldn't surprise me if all the images were bogus as well

reply to post by DragonFire1024


Thanks for that link.

According to that, the leak is about 200 feet from the well, approximately 95 feet north and 178 east of it.