OK my son stumped me with a thought provoking question about the Oil spill and I would like your help to formulate an answer

by StoneWall 8 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  StoneWall

  We had been talking about the massive oil spill and who all should be held accountable, when my son asked a question

  that I had not given any consideration to.

  He asked,"Since all that oil was underground to begin with and offshore, what would have happened if there was no oil rig out there but yet a massive earthquake hit out there miles under the sea and oceanfloor, right where that oil deposit was located, and the earth opened a crack all the way up to the ocean above, what would happen to that oil? Who would be responsible for the clean-up then?

  Also depending on the size of the crack there could be potentially hundreds of thousands gallons more oil spewing out than what is comnig out of that smaller drilled hole.

  How would you answer and what would make you think the way you do?

  *Edited to add*: I understand that this is more like a composite question instead of just one single question but he is a stinker to me today. I guess just view it as similar to the composite sign of the end that the WT told us about. Not just one sign but many making a composite.
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  Black Sheep

  It's a very possible scenario. The geology of the earth isn't fixed. Tectonic plate movement is how it got there in the first place.

  Eventually that oil will be either subducted and recycled or will resurface and be recycled. It's nobody's 'fault' any more than it is for an earthquake or a volcanic eruption.

  If it happens in your backyard you have to deal with it or leave the area, just like you do for any other natural catastrophic event.

  Cheers

  Chris
• 

  sir82

  Isn't the oil several thousand feet below the seabed?

  An earthquake in the gulf strong enough to open up a hole several thousand feet deep would create unimaginably enormous tsunamis, wiping out likely tens if not hundreds of millions of lives.

  The oil spill would be the least of your worries.

  I don't think you have to worry about it though. The gulf is not an earthquake zone.
• 

  coffee_black

  http://blogs.chron.com/newswatchenergy/archives/2010/06/natural_seeps_a.html June 04, 2010

  Natural seeps aren't as bad as Macondo well leak

  Sci Guy Eric Berger gives us this new myth-busting post about natural seeps of oil in the Gulf of Mexico and whether they're just as bad as the Deepwater Horizon leak .

  They're not. And Berger tells us why.

  Basically, there is always oil floating around the Gulf because geological fissures allow some oil to seep into the water. Estimates put the amount of oil from natural seeps at 560,000 to 1.4 million barrels a year across the Gulf.

  That amounts to 1,500 to 3,800 barrels a day, or about one-fifth the size of the spill caused by the leaking Macondo well. But it's not just size that makes natural seeps less threatening, Berger says. It's the concentration.

  "The natural seeps are spread over a huge area," [Larry McKinney, executive director of the Harte Research Institute for GoM Studies] said. "Because they've been going on for thousands of years, there is a really well developed bacterial community that eats these things. You might say that the whole Gulf of Mexico has been inoculated."

  So nature, Berger notes, has its own mechanism for coping with the oil. It eventually could accommodate the large amounts of oil leaking into the Gulf, but it only once the flow has stopped.

  * *

  I remember going to the beach as a kid... on the MA coast and finding tar balls... in fact my mom always packed special wipes of some sort that would remove the stuff if you happened to get some on you while swimming... There is natural leakage that occurs all the time. As the above states, it's the concentration that's the problem.

  Coffee
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  An earthquake moves ground, it does not make and leave behind open holes. The amount of matter involved is far too extensive to allow massive release of deep underground deposits of oil because of an earthquake.

  Marvin Shilmer
• 

  Caedes

  http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/infographic-tallest-mountain-to-deepest-ocean-trench-0249/

  If you want to see just how deep oil rigs drill, the diagram in the link above will help.
• 

  sammielee24

  Since the context of your discussion was about responsibility for the clean up - that's the way the answer should be framed.

  This massive trauma underground is the result of human negligence based on corporate negligence. Lies from a corporation in regards to safety of their operation and rubber stamped secondarily by the government offices. It is the responsibility of the corporation, whose sole purpose is to exist for profit, to pay for the population needed and all necessary equipment needed for the clean up for the next one year, five years or twenty years or whatever it takes. The government for it's part of the negligence, will have to pay hundreds of thousands of unemployed people by virtue of taxpayer dollars and that may mean millions in welfare payments to families who were self employed.

  Had the leak occurred naturally, the entire world would come together to combat the clean up. They are doing so now voluntarily, but clean up as a result of natural disaster is much different from an accountability standpoint than it is from business accountability.

  sammieswife.
• 

  StoneWall

  Thank all of you for your responses so far.

  Black Sheep, it's funny you mentioned tectonic plates because thats the very thing my son was saying and focusing on.

  From what coffee_black posted above, it seems this is a naturally occuring thing with oil being sent into the ocean periodically.

  I enjoyed that article.

  Marvin I must not be understanding what you typed above correctly. Are you suggesting that Earthquakes don't ever leave cracks or holes behind? I understand the part about earthquakes moves ground.

  I will quote you then post some pics and tell me what you mean.

  Marvin said:

  An earthquake moves ground, it does not make and leave behind open holes. The amount of matter involved is far too extensive to allow massive release of deep underground deposits of oil because of an earthquake.

  Now look at these pictures and also you can do a google search on "pictures of earthquake cracks" to see more.

  

  
• 

  StoneWall

  Caedes that was a very impressive diagram in your link you provided. Kinda puts it in perspective of how far they are actually drilling in thousands of feet, compared to the highest mountains and lowest dwelling sea creatures as well as what depths the subs are capable of attaining.

  Thanks for that link. This has all proved very informative to me. I like to research, especially things I've never really gave much thought to in the past.