[QUOTE=ferd;34736]are those methane hydrate flakes dropping thru the ROV footage?[/QUOTE]
I suspect highly that they’re methane hydrate (MH) rising to the surface in currents but before they reach it they will turn to 150x their volume in methane, rising to the top now. It seems MH might form like snow turned to hail stones after gas is being ejected from the well. Water at 4-6C or about 40F is the most dense and MH weighs 90% of H2O so MH floats. I imagine these ‘hailstones’ of MH would cloud and fill the inside of a Top Hat and form an ice shield eventually. Near the top 200’ low pressure water warms and melts it to methane bubbles which collect and grow as they rise. As a corrolary, water that is less dense at the surface 200-1000’ becomes lighter and so oil droplets do not remain buoyant. Water has that peculiar property. Still the oil must be realtively dense compared to what I see is typical crude oil.
I’m utterly fascinated with Methane Hydrate as potentially a critical player in this event and potentially very problematic. I’m not involved in the petroleum industry, a marine geologist, a qualified chemist, but rather a skilled observer of what’s sometimes unseen, a mini-polymath that sees big pictures and small. Below I offer exhibits and attachments that somewhat frighten me when I draw the conclusions.
There is likely a significant layer or layers of conglomerate formed and cemented by MH and forming impermeable barriers (as long as they are not phase shifted back to gas) This consideration of Methane Hydrate deserves a greater discussion. The edited excerpts below support my concern that this leaky hot pipe is at places surrounded by hardened concrete of MH that can phase shift upon change in temperature. This can cause landlslides or sideways channels and reservoirs under other layers, releasing still more, no telling how big this event could one day become. (i.e. Godzilla) I feel alone, hoping I’m concerned about phantoms … Perhaps I should write Sci-Fi novels and keep quiet here. Methane is as 72x the potency of CO2 as greenhouse gas over 20yrs, rising up now as we watch … I hope these crews working on Ground Zero site are prepared well for benzene (neurotoxic carcinogen from oil) and methane gas (odorless in pure form, asphyxiating and flammable, engines blow) … Any prudent mariner has many contingency plans. I have condensed and underlined my big-picture concern below with sources, for your review:
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[B]Because drilling can bring warm fluids up from depth, potentially melting the shallower gas hydrate, many researchers and engineers anticipate that drilling through gas hydrate may pose a [U]hazard to the stability[/U] of the well, the platform anchors, the tethers, or even entire platforms.[/B]
http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2003/07/fieldwork.html
[SIZE=1][SIZE=2]More than 99% of deep ocean hydrates consists of methane hydrate. If the physico-chemical conditions are satisfied, hydrate will form; however, hydrate is less dense than the surrounding seawater and [U]will float toward the surface until it decomposes[/U]. Thus, [U]natural oceanic hydrates are found in the sediment which traps them in the seafloor[/U] (Dillion & Max, 2000). [/SIZE]
[/SIZE]http://www.mbari.org/education/internship/04interns/04papers/Kristen_Schmidt04.pdf
Most methane, however, never makes it even as far as the sediments of the upper seafloor. Instead, as[U] it rises through the deep sediments, it quickly becomes trapped in lattice-like structures or cages (called clathrates) composed of water ice[/U]. At the proper conditions of temperature and pressure, methane or other gases found in the porous sediments spontaneously react with seawater to produce these structures.
These great pressures keep hydrate stable even at the increasingly warmer temperatures found in the more deeply buried sediment. Sediment temperatures increase with depth because they are heated from below, by the warmth from the interior of the Earth. [U][B]Typically temperature increases with sediment depth by 40°C to 50°C per kilometer (115°F to 145°F per mile).[/B][/U][I] (This increase is considerably higher than that in the crust of continents, which is about 25°C per kilometer, or 72°F per mile.)[/I] This temperature rise is referred to as the [U]geothermal gradient -- or geotherm[/U] -- for short.
[I](DO THE MATH?)[/I]
Within the gas hydrate stability zone, methane hydrates typically appear as bright white streaks, lumps, [U]lens-shaped units[/U] [I](with ROV?)[/I] and discontinuous layers in the brownish continental margin muds. Recent laboratory work has indicated that methane hydrate may also exist in[U] thin sheets in layers of certain ocean bottom clays[/U] (specifically, the clays montmorillonite and smectite). Therefore, even where methane hydrate is not visibly present, it may be concealed as part of seafloor muds (Guggenheim and Koster van Groos, 2003).
In coarse-grained sediment units -- those composed of sands and gravels rather than muds -- there is greater pore space for hydrates to form. In these units, therefore, [U][B]hydrates can be found as cements -- gluing the sands and gravels together by occupying the spaces between grains and pebbles[/B][/U]. There are also more [U][B]massive, laterally continuous layers, ranging from two meters (yards) up to several tens of meters in thickness[/B][/U] (Clennel, 2000). These hydrate layers and units, thick and thin, form a[U] largely impermeable barrier within the sediment[/U].
[U]Below this barrier, however, lies a substantial amount of free methane, too warm to form hydrate[/U]. Some of this free gas undoubtedly trickles upward into the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ), but there, because pressure and temperature conditions are right, it also becomes hydrate. Most hydrate, in fact, is likely to have been produced in this fashion. Some free methane, however, is carried upwards in warm fluids (water with dissolved gases, minerals, and/or organic matter) that circulate in the sediments. This methane may [U]make it through the gas hydrate stability zone[/U] and the overlying sediments, evade being consumed by methanotrophs, and [U]escape into the water column[/U] and eventually into the atmosphere.
Eventually the increasing warmth in deeper sediments prevents the formation of hydrates. Below a certain depth, depending on the local temperature conditions, hydrates cannot form, and only free methane exists. Between this depth, known as the base of the gas hydrate stability zone (BGHSZ) and the top of the gas hydrate stability zone is where the hydrates are. Thus oceanic methane hydrates are usually found buried in sediments where the overlying seawater is at least 300 meters (yards) deep. Depending on the local geothermal gradient, the [U]hydrates can be found up to about 2000 meters (about 1.2 miles) beneath the seafloor[/U], though typically the depth extends to only about 1100 meters (somewhat more than 0.6 mile) below the seafloor.
Numerous attempts have been made to estimate the amount of methane hydrate in the world's continental margins. The task is a difficult one, partly due to the relative scarcity of drill cores into and through the hydrates themselves. Consequently, all quantity estimates must be based on limited data, and on factors such as the amount of pore space available for hydrate storage which also must be estimated. Nonetheless, a recent study that meticulously identified these various factors and determined their probable ranges came up with a global estimate of 5,000 to 20,000 gigatons (billions of metric tons, abbreviated as Gt) of carbon in oceanic hydrate methane (Dickens, 2001).
http://www.killerinourmidst.com/methane%20and%20MHs2.html
And it is not only water depth that makes these wells tricky. The Macondo well was drilled to 18,000 feet below the sea floor. The [U]temperatures and pressures at those depths are extreme[/U], and drilling and operating such wells is at the cutting edge of knowledge and technology. [B]In effect, every well is a prototype.[/B]
[http://247wallst.com/2010/04/30/gulf...ing-expansion/](http://247wallst.com/2010/04/30/gulf-oil-leak-will-stall-offshore-drilling-expansion/)
BP has stated to the press that this well is “50% gas” as they attempted to minimize the effects to the environment. Linked is video of offshore blowout involving Actinia semi-submersible oil rig, off Vietnam in February 1993. posted here previously:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhZKUYVXM78 as the [I]beginning of a worst case blowout contingency[/I]. Having searched the web for an hour about this event I can find very little detail specifics … and I find that in itself suspicious. This layer of MH conglomerate could form a passageway in theory for lateral breakouts and eventual side flows to new eruption sites in surrounding seabed, perhaps even sink hole collapses or violent gas chamber uprisings, new related blowouts, in my opinion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4whiKQgnp4w [I]Matt Simmons suspects ancillary leaks 5-7 miles away.[/I]
The best way to prevent hot oil and gas from being injected into surrounding layers might be to reduce backflow pressure, so to let it flow out the top. I hope I am 100% WRONG. I’m concerned about yelling fire in a theater so I speak quietly here to caring folks with good noggins.