NEWS: Mysterious Outbreak Of Mud And Gas Geysers In Oklahoma Has Officials Puzzled.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
This isn't anywhere near where they are storing natural gas by pumping it underground is it? Might be one of those systems has sprung a leak. Or as it has been said something might have shifted underground and released a pocket of gas that is seeping to the surface.

No. There are no underground storage areas. But there are disposal wells all over Oklahoma, so the chemical smell (which could point to solvents) could be coming from a compromised disposal well. Problem is the geysers are spread over far too big an area for this to be coming from one compromised well.

And the fact that they are all along this creek is even weirder.

Originally posted by alphabetaone
Kingfisher Geyser Video


AB1

appreciate the link AB1,
i was lucky to stay on the link for a pause after the video,
& viola!
there were actually 3each 2 1/2 minute clips,
( i reckon a series of videos since last Friday(9 Dec '05) when the natural gas geysers first started)

they reported lots of factoids....i.e. the region is sandstone & shale.
and the nearest gas geyser to OK City is just 1 1/2 miles distant.

enough info to inform my laymans mind...that there is no need for underground pressures or magma domes way down deep....
as the gas releases are most likly from natural fractures of the strata which trapped the gas, and its just venting upward-> along the weakest points.

Originally posted by St Udio

enough info to inform my laymans mind...that there is no need for underground pressures or magma domes way down deep....
as the gas releases are most likly from natural fractures of the strata which trapped the gas, and its just venting upward-> along the weakest points.

No problem St Udio

I think It may be remiss to say that this may NOT portend perhaps some seismic activity, but, like you, I tend to ascribe to the fact that due to the areas already thin layering, its natural 'path of least resistance' if you will, makes it nothing more than just that.
Perhaps if it continues and/or gets worse, there may be a need to rethink this..

Here's a really easy to understand explanation about the various factors that must come together to get a surface geyser.

www.umich.edu...

I learned a lot.

Val's geyser 'primer' mentions heat as one of the factors for having a geyser.......but there was no mention of heat in the video clips....I didn't see any steam, and there were even icicles shown hanging in the brush where the water was splashing.

If the gas is venting to the surface due to gas pressure, or just due to being lighter than water ( and air?) would it still correctly be called a geyser? Just wondering...

And the distance from Kingfisher was 1 1/2 miles to the nearest geyser, I think OK city is about 50 more miles from Kingfisher.

frayed,

Not only that but one report said "cold water and gas" in describing one of the geysers. I'm not sure that the water coming to surface has to be hot. In reading the "factors" site I think it would be driven by something at a greater depth and high temperature causing increased gas pressure (either of already existing gases or steam generation) that pushed everything upward. So this could be the "cool stuff" being driven by the deeper "hot stuff".

Originally posted by frayed1
Val's geyser 'primer' mentions heat as one of the factors for having a geyser.......but there was no mention of heat in the video clips....I didn't see any steam, and there were even icicles shown hanging in the brush where the water was splashing.

If the gas is venting to the surface due to gas pressure, or just due to being lighter than water ( and air?) would it still correctly be called a geyser? Just wondering...

And the distance from Kingfisher was 1 1/2 miles to the nearest geyser, I think OK city is about 50 more miles from Kingfisher.

Actually, thermodynamics isnt the only geoscientific cause of a geyser, I believe even the study shows that in there somewhere, but gases play an important role in the dynamics, as well as the various quantities of gases dictate the posture of a geyser. Gases in subterranean liquid would cause that liquid to boil with a very small heat element sometimes even one not necessarily perceptible to us.
Those 'icicles' you saw were probably very much like if you were to take a can of freon or compressed air, and steadily spray it along shrubbery or grasses...just the temperature of the ejecting liquid turning to gas being so cold.

I could see, though, because most geyser's are directly related to hotsprings, where someone might imagine that there needs to be an incredibly hot heat element associated with a geyser.

Ice will form from any temperature water or vapor condenses and is affected by an ambient air temperature that is lower then freezing. Meaning you can throw a bucket of hot water into another bucket sitting outside when the air temp is below freezing and bingo the hot water cools and forms ice.

Since the reports say the water coming out of the geysers is cold mixed with gas, Val thoughts about a deeper surface reaction causing gas expansion to "push" a column of water up is probably right on, as the expanding gases push up they filter through the water column and punch through the surface as a mixture. So we might have micro cracks in the water table causing water to flow into a heated magma tube, this reaction causing a gas exchange from the mantel material as the super heated water breaks down the surrounding rock and you get a burst of water and gas that rises up through the water table which has now become highly charged with pressurized gases and vents through the nearest surface weak point.

By shutting off the Natural gas pipeline this has reduced the "venting" in the gas table and forced more pressure into the water table which is causing the cooler water and gas to vent to the surface.

There propable are no reports of contaminated well water because the wells are deeper then the natural water table and the gases are lighter so the gas contaminated water to venting to the surface before it can drop down into the deeper water well areas. Wells are fed by gravity and if I recall are drilled deeper then the natural water table so that they can be filled from the top. I am not sure where the pumps pick up the water but I would hope the pump line is ran pretty deep to allow for drops in the overall water depth in the well.

The lighter gases then should be venting out of the wells without contaminating the well water.

So funky smells makeby but no funky water except where the gas water mixture is being vented directly at the surface.

Originally posted by alphabetaone
Kingfisher Geyser Video

See the above link for those interested in a Newsclip Video from NewsOK on what the geysers look like.
According to their local officials, there are no Gas Line cracks, or other geoscientific abnormalities.

AB1

Thank you for the link to the video.

It seems that the event has diminished slightly, as the leak was advancing and growing towards the town of Kingfisher but luckily it hasn't reached the city.

Here are a few pictures and an update on the story.

KINGFISHER, Okla. (AP) _ Experts were analyzing the composition of natural gas shooting to the surface along a creek in a rural area of central Oklahoma in hopes of discovering its origin and determining what can be done to prevent the explosive vapors from reaching the surface.

Gas geysers continued to occur Tuesday along a five-mile section of Winter Camp Creek and were within about a mile of the town of Kingfisher, authorities said.

Excerpted from.
www.kotv.com...

I could be wrong but i doubt this was caused by any drilling activity. It could be possible, but I have my doubts. I talked to the geologist on location on my rig and the only thing he said was "hummm," he was perplexed, but didn't say anything else about it.

Two other friends of mine, who also happen to be geologists and whom i have worked with in other rigs came last night to visit us, and we talked about this. We have been talking before about this and the apparent increase in seismic activity all over the US, which is also happening all over the world.

I think it is highly probable that Robert and Valhall are right, this could very well be caused by a pool of magma that heated the gases releasing them to the surface.

[edit on 13-12-2005 by Muaddib]

Muaddib,

Knowing that you are well acquainted with drilling activities, don't you find it simply ludicrous for an "expert" to insinuate that a drilling rig could drill through a high-pressure gas zone and create a large-enough flow UP a wellbore to a permeable zone of lower fracture gradient and then cause this volume of gas (and water) to spew out of multiple points over a 13 mile stretch?

First of all, that kind of gas production up the wellbore would have blown the drillstring (hell, forget the drillstring, the whole rig!) to Kansas and I haven't heard any news of a rig being trashed due to a severe (and severe is an understatement in this case) kick-back.

That's just crazy talk if you ask me.

Also, I would be curious to hear what feedback you get when you tell them this stuff smells like Benzene and Toluene. That's kind of flooring me as well.

This is really interesting for me. Springer has surgery on Friday, so I probably won't be able to take a road-trip, but I bet a sawbuck will get my son up there! Maybe he'll get us some pics and ask some questions for us.

[edit on 12-13-2005 by Valhall]

Originally posted by Valhall
Muaddib,

Knowing that you are well acquainted with drilling activities, don't you find it simply ludicrous for an "expert" to insinuate that a drilling rig could drill through a high-pressure gas zone and create a large-enough flow UP a wellbore to a permeable zone of lower fracture gradient and then cause this volume of gas (and water) to spew out of multiple points over a 13 mile stretch?

First of all, that kind of gas production up the wellbore would have blown the drillstring (hell, forget the drillstring, the whole rig!) to Kansas and I haven't heard any news of a rig being trashed due to a severe (and severe is an understatement in this case) kick-back.

That's just crazy talk if you ask me.

Yep, that's crazy talk. That would be impossible to happen in a rig since we make sure that the pressure of the wellbore is always , or almost always....(crosses fingers), balanced. This way the gases downhole do not come up the wellbore, if it does, those people at the rig are most certainly doomed.

Once the gas in a rig starts flowing up, even if there are fractured/fissure areas where some of the gas escapes into, much of that gas would still go up the wellbore and would blow up the rig as well as a large section of the area around the rig. This would certainly have made the news if a rig blew up.

However, it could very well happen to a producing well. Producing wells do not have hydrostatic head, since no fluids are being pumped into the well to balance the pressure from the wellbore, this is done only in the drilling stage to prevent any gases from coming up the wellbore as it is drilled into, which would blow up the rig and almost for certain would kill everyone in the rig, unless we have some warning.

Originally posted by Valhall
Also, I would be curious to hear what feedback you get when you tell them this stuff smells like Benzene and Toluene. That's kind of flooring me as well.

Humm, I didn't know that they could smell Benzene and Toluene, that would rule out the possibility of this being a natural event. The most probable explanation for this is that it was caused by a producing well, since Benzene and Toluene are not natural occurring gases, in the sense that they do not occur naturally unless there are hydrocarbons present, but are aromatic hydrocarbon compounds.

Originally posted by Valhall
This is really interesting for me. Springer has surgery on Friday, so I probably won't be able to take a road-trip, but I bet a sawbuck will get my son up there! Maybe he'll get us some pics and ask some questions for us.

[edit on 12-13-2005 by Valhall]

Send my regards to Springer. What kind of surgery is he undergoing on Friday? i hope is nothing major.


--edited to correct sentence, since Toluene and benzene do happen naturally but only when hydrocarbons are present----


[edit on 14-12-2005 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by Muaddib

Humm, I didn't know that they could smell Benzene and Toluene, that would rule out the possibility of this being a natural event. The most probable explanation for this is that it was caused by a producing well, since Benzene and Toluene are not natural occurring gases but are aromatic hydrocarbon compounds.

Correct, but they ARE the dominant organic gases in volcanic gases. (I have a link on that in one of the dualing threads on this...I keep popping back and forth.)

Originally posted by Valhall
Correct, but they ARE the dominant organic gases in volcanic gases. (I have a link on that in one of the dualing threads on this...I keep popping back and forth.)

Yep, you are right, I realized my mistake after I post it and read it. Benzene and Toluene are compounds that "do happen naturally" but only when hydrocarbons are present.

I don't know for sure. I will ask the mud logger (geologist) when he gets back and see what he says. What to me is the strangest thing is the large area where this is occurring.

i wish we had more information about this.


[edit on 14-12-2005 by Muaddib]

I found this quote..

"Under your "What's Erupting Now" section of Volcanoes of the World, you refer to the February 22, 1997 eruption of the Piparo Mud Volcano in Trinidad in the West Indies. Your note on this "eruption" quite correctly points out that you viewed with skepticism the early reports of lava eruptions from this volcano. In fact, this and other mud volcanoes in Trinidad are not volcanoes in the true sense. The eruptions are the result of the eruption from accumulated pockets within the earth of natural gas of which there are tremedous quantities in Trinidad."

... on volcanoworld.org.

Source: www.volcanoworld.org...

Would this fall under the same category?

If the 3 years of winter come, then you will know that this is the beginning of the Norse doomsday Ragnarok. It calls for the uprising of the gods to come forth from under and out of the earth and to make their way to Norway where the final battle will take place. But it also could just be a way for earth to release pressure. Like it has done for the past millions of years. But I would like to think of number 1. But thats just because it would be way cool.

I just talked to the geologist and he says that hydrocarbons would oxidize in a volcano because of the extremely high temperatures. He rules out this being caused by a magma pool, since the same would happen to the hydrocarbon compounds, they would oxidize. The gases you find in volcanoes are mostly sulfides.


[edit on 14-12-2005 by Muaddib]

According to geologists tests on the scene, the gases are:

93% Methane, with the remaining 7% being a combination of Ethane, Propane, and Nitrogen.

I find it very unusual that a bore hole some 1.5 to 12 miles away would be the cause of this, however, their drilling official spokesman claims that there was unusually high pressure on one of the wells.
While its extremely unusual, I doubt its impossible that drilling that far away could impact a natural gas reserve in an area of thin crustal layer.

See this related article for more info:

Oklahoma Geyser On NewsOK

Salt Dome changes

Most OIL in Oklahoma is found on top of large salt domes. Oil geysers happen when the pressure between the surrounding rock and the salt dome is expressed in the OIL.

These cold geysers in my opionion were caused by a new pressure to the underlying salt domes in the area.

Note: similar geysers were seen shortly before and after the great quakes of 1811-12 along the new madrid and as far away as western kansas.

However, attacked is a link to a list of deep hazardous waste injection wells in the Tulsa area......could also be a source of the geysers.

www.deq.state.ok.us...

Originally posted by thermopolis
Salt Dome changes

Most OIL in Oklahoma is found on top of large salt domes. Oil geysers happen when the pressure between the surrounding rock and the salt dome is expressed in the OIL.

Correction - oil will be BELOW a salt dome.

order from top down:

salt dome
gas
oil
water

Please let me be more precise.................