BP Petro Leak Under Pressure ?

I was wondering to myself yesterday, why would an oceanic floor petroleum leak like that !

If all petroleum that ever existed under the oceanic floor was under pressure, just like the BP leak, wouldn`t they ALL leak ?

The pressure under 1,5Km of water is enormous. The only thing that beats it is under water volcanoes or rare methane gas.

So... This is my question to all ATS` ?

For the petroleum to flow out like that, it has to be pumped out with rather ac or hydraulic pumping mechanisms...

With the pressure of the Gulf of Mexico`s water on the spill way down there, I do not think so that petroleum can shoot out so many thousands of oil per day.

Comments ?

Because, they dug a hole there. Which allowed the contents under pressure to escape.

You take a soda bottle, you shake it. What happens? It gets all fizzy and foamed up inside. Open the bottle and it starts to spill out. Not quite as dramatic here, but thats the idea I think.

If someone is more familiar with the situation, Im sure they could correct me if Im wrong.

Originally posted by Miraj
Because, they dug a hole there. Which allowed the contents under pressure to escape.

You take a soda bottle, you shake it. What happens? It gets all fizzy and foamed up inside. Open the bottle and it starts to spill out. Not quite as dramatic here, but thats the idea I think.

If someone is more familiar with the situation, Im sure they could correct me if Im wrong.

No, your actually correct. The contents of the oil deposit is under pressure (remember they went down a mile to the ocean floor, they dug another 5 to 10 thousand feet (it was supposed to be dug up to 18,000 feet in the ground and then capped for future production). So you have pressure from this at another mile or two miles down on top of the mile under the ocean. And at on top of all that the dynamic stresses from the land masses that come together and squeeze pockets of anything (water, lava, oil etc.) in the ground and you have massive pressure waiting to be punch out. They tapped it and the pressure like a soda bottle or can came out and will continue to come out for a long time.

en.wikipedia.org...

This wiki of the whole affair is already up, pretty detailed.

Originally posted by Grinder
I was wondering to myself yesterday, why would an oceanic floor petroleum leak like that !

If all petroleum that ever existed under the oceanic floor was under pressure, just like the BP leak, wouldn`t they ALL leak ?

The pressure under 1,5Km of water is enormous. The only thing that beats it is under water volcanoes or rare methane gas.

So... This is my question to all ATS` ?

For the petroleum to flow out like that, it has to be pumped out with rather ac or hydraulic pumping mechanisms...

With the pressure of the Gulf of Mexico`s water on the spill way down there, I do not think so that petroleum can shoot out so many thousands of oil per day.

Comments ?

Hell yes it is under pressure.

Imagine....it is a mile down.

The deepest-diving large, military-style submarine was the Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets, with a hull made of titanium, making it very expensive, but able to withstand significantly deeper dives than the best submarines made of high-grade steel, like American nuclear submarines. The Komsomolets was a nuclear powered submarine specially designed to make trips as far down as 1300 meters (4265 feet) below sea level, definitely less than the Trieste, but very significant because the Komsomolets had to "defend" a much larger air bubble against the encroaching pressure of the surrounding ocean.

www.wisegeek.com...

At that level below the surface, the pressure of the water is extremely, extremely high. On the video we see it squirting out with quite a bit of force. You can imagine that the water at the mouth of that broken pipe is like a brick wall to the oil coming out. And that oil squirts out a few feet, like it was a drainage pipe for a storm system in a large city.

It is under very high pressure.