10 May 2010

How big is the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill?

How big is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?  When you are on the floor of the ocean it may be hard to get a real idea.  Use the links here to find out just how big it is - it will astonish you.  You only have to look at the map above to get an idea.

As you no dount know, on April 20th, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon left kicked off what could become the greatest environmental catastrophe of our - and any - time.  There are to this date 17 workers injured and 11 missing, and presumed dead.

An immense human tragedy but overshadowed by the amount of oil that is coming out of the disaster area.  Oil surging from a well ober five thousand feet below sea level.  Imagine your hosepipe pinched at the end and you can imagine the discharge of over 200,000 gallons of crude oil a day coming from the site.

From these sites you can compare the area to other places in the world, in terms of land mass.

Of course, private estimates put the figure at closer to two million gallons a day. The spill covers at least almost three hundred thousand square miles of ocean surface.The old son The Earth Dies Screaming  may now be applicable to the oceans too.

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