This might be a wild idea!

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the untold damage being caused by the thousands of gallons of crude leaking into the sea.

The leak obviously occured, and there are clearly a number of factors that caused this to happen.

The leaking pipe allows the oil in the rocks beneath the seabed to leak out.

Assuming that the oil is in some sort of "pocket" in the rock and assuming that there is a finite amount of oil there, it stands to reason that eventually the oil leak will run out.

Now, the idea I had is this:

If a pocket of this crude is located in an area where an earthquake causes a rupture in the "pocket", millions/billions of gallons of crude could be released in one go. This would certainly spell disaster for any life in the area and possibly wider afield.

Just a thought.... what do you think?

That would be the perfect storm. Frightening thought.

Unfortunately, there are reports that other ruptures are out there, and BP is covering them up so they are hailed as heroes when the last of the 7 failed attempts works. Even if there was a huge rupture, chances are we would never know about it.