Published: January 22nd, 2013 at 12:05 am ET
|
Title: Sink Hole ‘burp’ Causes New Worries
Source: WWL Radio
Reporter: David Blake
Date: 21 January 2013 4:31p ET
Concern about that 8 and half acre sink hole is ramping up after it burped up over the weekend. [...]
When the sink hole burped, it sent crude oil and debris into the air. [...]
John Boudreaux [The director of the Assumption Parish Homeland Security] said there is concern about the sink hole expanding.
“It’s showing signs that it may not be finished growing and it may grow an additional amount.” [...]
See also: TV: Something alarming happening at sinkhole, major cracks in well pad -- Official: "Additional cracking has occurred... it seems that land is sloughing in towards the sinkhole" (VIDEO)
Published: January 22nd, 2013 at 12:05 am ET
|
sending...
I was thinking of selling tickets to the sinkhole like the La Brea Tar Pits but if begins burping at regular intervals it might be a variation of Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park…worth more money.
I wonder if the partially collapsed cavern is trapping gases in the roof section and releasing a bubble after it fills up. I don't think they have set up to filter and vent at the wellhead yet that runs down to what's left of the cavern.
Report Comment
razzz, I think you have the mechanism more or less nailed. the part you missed was that when the burp happens, fresh water replaces the gas and ENLARGES the cavern by disolving more salt from the sides of it. then over time the gas accumulates at the roof starting the burp/disolve cycle over again.
this thing could keep growing until they figure out how to stem the flow of fresh water into the hole. tough to do in a bayou.
Report Comment
Go right ahead razzz, then tell me how the lynching went?
No, this is more a matter of a 'Throat Seep Plug'. I have wrote about it on my blog and explained it back on November 29, 2012.
http://freedomrox.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/meanwhile-down-at-the-louisiana-sinkhole-and-lake-oxy-3/
It is acting as a flapper valve. This is evidenced by the amount of vegetative debris,(trees, and grass clumps stuck at the bottom of the funnel).
If you read the blog entries you will see that this was an expected event, just should have figured TB and ITASCA would find a way for the 'Baby to bounce on your stomach after eating beans' to occur before it normally would have happened.
Leave it to the Big Brains to do something totally irresponsible, and dangerous without warning or though to the population nearby.
T-Rex indeed!
Report Comment
I hate to use this term, but… duh!
Report Comment
The sinkhole IS A SELF EATING system and no one knows how big and dangerous it can get. This sinkhole could expand its self to multiple caverns not even connected to its self, The ground could collapse for miles. The ground could cause a domino effect sinking many states below the surface of the ocean.
Markww
Report Comment
That's a visual, a new grand canyon cut by a hydrocarbon river.
Report Comment
Speaking of self eating systems; did you hear the Japanese are drilling to the mantle of the Earth? I keep seeing it go horribly wrong, they will be drilling in the ocean, I see unpatchable hole to the heat, oceans evaporating, currents stopping, sulfur just teaming off the deadness.. atmospheric cover blocking the sun no plants, oxygen or people left..
perhaps I read too much Stephen King..just the picture that runs through my head when I contimplate why that shouldn't be done.
http://phys.org/news/2011-03-scientists-drill-earth-mantle.html
Report Comment
couple of info sites
http://www.iodp.org/mantle-drilling-preliminary-resources
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/japanese-vessel-sets-ocean-drilling-record-7000-feet-unde
http://uk.reuters.com/video/2013/01/08/billion-dollar-drilling-project-aims-for?videoId=240350714
Report Comment
I don't normally tend to agree with this type of thinking. I'm more the brighter side kind of person, but this sinkhole and the fact that they feel they have no choice but to continue w/ TRex, sounds to me like they have nothing to lose… So should the top fall down and the bottom fall out, what is a real life worse case scenario? Not the cheesy crap they keep giving… but real life? I would also like to know if they do the big survey utilizing dynamite, because my family will take a little road trip on that day.
Report Comment
Well, it would be reasonable, (taking into account T-Rex is not a part of the VSP, but an addition, that has to leave very soon), if this were done 4 months ago, when the situation was not so precarious. Even a VSP would have been helpful then, and mitigation could have been performed. As per the 2010 VSP, it sure means they knew where this was heading, and after called out on it, and after TB tried to blame it all on tectonics, then the VSP onsite should have been done then, and without fail.
As for the new 7000 ft survey? Who knows? This si all about as transparent as US administration claims to be. That's why I state residents and anyone20 miles, East, West and 100 miles South, should be marching in to demand these answers, and not allow them to pull another T-Rex on them. This is now a National Disaster.
Everyone between the 'Stinkhole' and the Gulf of Mexico is being poisoned, as well as the environment, and flora and fauna.
Report Comment
Worst case scenario? A very large 2 by 5 mile hole in the ground and a soup of salts, and oil, and water.
Report Comment
I wonder how FAR into the air the debris went…a couple of feet? Twenty feet? How long before this progresses from belch to vomit? Or instead of anthropomorphizing this sink hole with a throat…could we use more oil and geological sounding terms…how long until the first full on oil gusher geyser after the gas that accompanies oil pushes its way through if this isn't just a seep from the Big Humm or related Napoleanville pockets? As pressure continues to grow (we can agree it continues to grow?) can you see a point when resistance may be overcome, but yet the need for pressure release continues? Because I just don't see any reason for bubbling all over the bayous if this is just seepage.
Report Comment
Expanding, or maybe re-enforcing markww's comment; how many caverns, man-made and natural, crisscross the southern states? How improbable is it to see something like this sink hole to continue growing then impacting another cavern? With every burp and methane bubble it's a little more space opening up underground for more stuff to fall in.
"About 500 salt domes exist in the U.S., all located near or in the Gulf of Mexico, where an ancient sea stood until the Jurassic age. It left behind a layer of salt called the Louann Salt that stretches from East Texas to the Florida Panhandle and as far north as southern Arkansas"
Report Comment
Wow. I think it's time they declare this a superfund site.
They need to drive sheet piles into the bedrock at a radius of twice the depth of the cavern bottom all the way around the site and de-water the area. If there is an aquifer of fresh water in the rock this needs to be sealed off too. Some how they must stop fresh water from getting into that salt. Its that simple(or complicated). It's not new technology like the Big Fuku.
Report Comment
New bubbling just released
http://assumptionla.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/245-p-m-updated-bubbling-sites/
Report Comment
‘T-Rex’ tests sinkhole
Official says work unsure after well pad evacuated
January 22, 2013
http://theadvocate.com/news/4967301-123/t-rex-tests-sinkhole
Report Comment
From Heart's link: Next month, under an agreement with the Louisiana Office of Conservation that ended litigation over testing on the sinkhole, Texas Brine plans to do the most intensive seismic testing of all, 3-D seismic tests across a swath of the Bayou Corne area.
Expected to deliver a picture 7,000 feet deep, these tests may show whether any feared voids exist underground and the location of oil and gas traps.
Cartwright said the company is working on permitting and landowner access and will be meeting with residents about access. Some testing on larger, wooded tracts is expected to begin in mid-February, he said.
So…testing was delayed until now because of court cases? Who and what was the holdup?
Does it bother anyone else that this form of vibrational testing may further upset the area seismically? Can it?
Is this the first testing of "wooded tracts" or areas without water to show bubbling?
Report Comment
What is the mood of residents RE: access…in other words…drilling on their land?
Report Comment
Yes, I know…TRex is not drilling. But private property relief wells, and wording that sounded like it may be headed for imminent domain struck me when private property access was first mentioned a couple of months ago.
Report Comment
First, the safety of the citizens(TAXPAYERS) is primary. Texas Brine should offer equitable buyouts to all property owners. At FULL value, not some "disaster sale" price and cover all relocation costs. THEN they can play spelunking of the new cave system…
Report Comment
Of course, their safety is FIRST. Not so sure further puncturing a pressure cooker perfectly under control for eons is a good idea…but let's say it is. OR let's look at this as it unravels. Is it not possible this is being managed as the MOTHER LOAD of oil/gas production? If so, is it not possible this property is pay dirt that will be acquired for a few town meetings?
Report Comment