Nature's Oil Spill

So true. The seeps are very useful too. We use them to predict which faults might make excellent migration pathways to get oil from the source rocks into a shallower reservoir rock. Then all we need is some type of trapping configuration to contain some of it before it all seeps off to the surface.

I know it's outside your specialty but have you got anything on Nature's clean-up of the leaking oil?

There have to be oil eating bacteria and other natural resources at work or Mississippi would have the world's longest man-made oil residue instead of some nice beach, the Gulf side of FL would be just as bad , and you sure wouldn't want to go to San Marcos.

Either that or the floor of the Gulf would be the cold version of the La Brea tar pit.

Yes, chemosynthetic organisms are abundant around natural oil seeps. Some seepage does of course end up on the coasts as tar and asphaltenes but most disperses at sea, the volatile components evaporate and some is eaten by chemosynthetic organisms, ie some bacteria, tubeworms, some clams. These organisms are similar to those vent communities that 'eat' sulfur around the seafloor vents that are spewing super hot water containing many sulfur compounds. The only difference is that the seep communities prefer a little carbon in their diets, they've evolved to dine on hydrocarbons.

A great deal of the natural gas seeping out gets trapped at about 400 meters subsea as methane hydrates or clathrates, that frozen methane ice we hear a lot about lately.

Here are a couple of interesting links that talk a bit about natural seeps in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore California. That second article also goes into something else you brought up in another thread, oil reservoirs recharging in 'real time'. The seeps do that too. They're actually pretty handy but noone really wants to hear about them. After all, if oil washes up on your coastline and destroys some habitats and makes a mess you can't exactly sue mother nature. You need to find some deep pockets somewhere to pay for it so you don't want to hear about natural seeps lol.

http://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/seeps/what.html

http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/oil.htm

Great links, especially the second one.

I knew I could count on you to add to my education.

I'm guessing it's relatives of the chemo-synthetic organisms that are being tested to clean up man-made spills. I can just picture replacing the floating oil barriers they use now with rings of giant tube worms. (I know, bacteria are more likely but the mental picture's not the same ;)

When did Capt. Hazlewood go to work for Mother Nature??

Not to justify stupidity but there is nothing new under the sun and as oil spills are natural even smog has been coming out of volcanoes from the very start.

Nature will take a correction course and mankind may disappear for a couple of million years, if need be...

LMAO yeah what a mental pic. But all those poor little tube worms would explode to mush at surface pressures. Ahhh details, details.

Already using chenosynthetic bacteria on spills. The problem is keeping it from dispersing before the bugs can finish dinner.

Here's a cool article too on the possibility of expanding that to include cleaning up spills even in environments as harsh as Antarctica

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=21652