By Samantha Joye | Published: June 6, 2010 12:17am June 5th, 18:34. The plume was hiding. We anticipated that the flow trajectory of the oil and gas discharging from the leaking riser pipe would change after the pipe was cut but it was tough to predict which way the flow would go. We had a day and a half of ops remaining and our goal was to find the plume, revisit several stations to see how they had changed over time, and sample two control sites well away from the plume. When we arrived back at ground zero, things had changed. The Discoverer Enterprise was sporting a methane flare. This is how drilling ships and rigs get rid of excess methane gas—they burn it. The flare was visible from several miles away and when we were up close, about 0.75 miles away, the roar of the flame was audible. Several fire control boats were dousing the flare pipe and the area around it with water to keep it as cool as possible. The sound of the burning flame was mesmerizing and we spent some time taking in the sight. We found the plume after about 8 (very frustrating) hours of searching for it. … Below, I’ll do my best to answer some of the questions I have received in the past few days. The questions are in bold (I’ve shortened some of them); my answers are in regular font. Is the oil/dispersant mixture in micellar form? Or is the oil in droplets? The answer is both. It’s likely that some of the oil-dispersant mixture is present as micelles but there are also oil droplets in some of the samples, especially those from near the leaking riser pipe. There is a lot of light scattering in the plumes, this could be due to several factors, including the presence of oil in the water. Re: sulfonate detergent micelles: what effect does this ionic packaging have on accessibility to the oil of bacteria doing the bioremediation? Unfortunately, no one knows the answer to this question and it is a KEY question that we need to know the answer to. … How serious is the oxygen depletion problem? Potentially, this is a very serious problem. At present, oxygen concentrations exceed 2 mg/L but if concentrations drop below that, it would spell problems for any oxygen requiring organisms. The Southwest Plume is, at a minimum, 15 miles long x 2 miles long and the plume is about 600 feet thick. Temperatures in the plume are about 8-12ºC. We do not know the absolute oil content at this time. …
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