Tremors felt 45 miles away from Bayou Corne Sinkhole!

Dow chemical what a nasty company they are...I am not surprised that their dirty little hands are in on this one.

reply to post by CajunBoy


And the super slow motion train wreck is still "on track" so to speak.

@CajunBoy and anyone else with some knowledge or insight into this mess.

Now we have at least one more cavern involved and it released God knows how much methane into the surrounding underground strata. So my question now is "Just how many more caverns and rock domes are we finally going to see compromised before this plays out?" and "When it does play out how much, if any, of the Bayou Corne and surrounding areas will be left inhabitable?".

If there is as much methane under the cap rocks as it sounds like, how much pressure is it under and what happens when that pressure is released? Are there strata weakened by the continuous drilling and salt mining that are being buoyed up by the methane pressure that will be in danger of collapse when enough pressure is released.

Just to give you an idea of the effect even a small amount of pressure can have on whatever is containing it, consider these numbers.

Say you have a cylindrical tank that is 4 feet in diameter, for this example length is not important.

Now let's say that the tank is pressurized to a measly 10 PSI (Pounds Per Square Inch).

Now we do the math...

A circle 4 feet in diameter has an area of 12.566 square feet. (Pi X (r squared))

A square foot is comprised of 144 square inches.

12.566 X 144 = 1,809.5 square inches of surface area.

At just 10 PSI the 4 foot diameter end of the tank alone is under a total loading of 10 X 1,809.5 or 18,095 pounds of total loading.

Go to 100 PSI and the total loading of that 4 foot diameter tank end is now a total of 180,950 pounds.

Now apply those figures to a cap rock that covers an acre or more and you can see that even at a paltry few PSI that cap rock is being buoyed up by a tremendous amount of total pounds absolute.

What happens now if over the years the cap rock, and the structure holding it up, have been weakened by drilling, mining and storage activity? What will be the effect of that pressure being released?

Originally posted by BrieBird
Dow chemical what a nasty company they are...I am not surprised that their dirty little hands are in on this one.

Dow Chemical has a spotty past indeed. Union Carbide, which was owned by Dow Chemical, was responsible for the 1984 gas leak that killed an estimated 25,000 people in Bhopal India. It was described as the worst chemical accident in world history at the time. Let's pray that they don't break that record in the Bayous.

A slough-in has been reported on the south west side of the sinkhole. They believed it went down last night. Keep y'all eyes on the seismic meters, some reports of activity today.

Didnt see this posted.

Comment from rainbeaudais who filmed the video.

Published on Dec 11, 2012

First, I apologize for the camera shake.I was in a boat, very nervous, and trying to hurry....

The water level was low as is normal for this time of year, and muddy from a recent heavy rain.

This was my first sight of these methane gas under pressure bubbling sites down the bayou approx 1/2 mile from the homes on the south side of Hwy 70. Nothing I have seen on the news, or on the APPJ flicker photo site prepared me for what I saw going on. I was shocked, and so very heavy hearted after seeing what I saw. It was very chilling, knowing of all the gas under us, but also knowing of the massive (unknown location) voids in the earth.

There was a direct path of water coming from the sinkhole and draining in to the bayou at the pipeline row, and several others, none contained. Texas Brine and the other agencies seem to think that little boom they have at the sinkhole is enough. I disagree. The booms do not stop the saltwater. We saw only one small alligator in about 30 minutes, and lots of dead fish.

If there are this many bubbling sites in the water where they are easily seen, we can only dare to imagine how many are on land, and in the swamps between the sinkhole and the homes west of the sinkhole....that we don't know of.

reply to post by Kituwa


I already posted this one and one other new one in THIS POST

But you get a star from me anyway for the good commentary.

reply to post by happykat39


Thanks Happykat. I didnt go back but a couple of pages.

The video is frightening and so sad.

I know this isnt about LA but it involves methane gas popping up in several other areas! What's going on?

WV



Boston (maybe someone can fix, I dont know how to post a pic)

Originally posted by Kituwa
I know this isnt about LA but it involves methane gas popping up in several other areas! What's going on?

WV

Boston (maybe someone can fix, I dont know how to post a pic)

There are two ways to post a picture on ATS. The first is the external image function but you have to have the actual address for the picture not just the web page address it is on. You get that address by right clicking on the image and selecting the "view image info" option. Then you copy and paste the address for the picture into the external image window. This only works right if you can click on the picture and open just the picture in a separate tab. Otherwise you get the whole page the image is on instead. And even then it doesn't always work like you want it to. Here is an example of it working right...



The second way is to save the image to your hard drive and then upload it to ATS using the upload function found under the tools button at the top of the page. Once you have it uploaded and saved to one of your four folders you click on it and you will get the code for direct display.

Here is an example...

[pic ]ux50a58bbb.jpg[/pic ] Extra spaces added to illustrate the actual code.

And the picture without the extra spaces in the code.

reply to post by happykat39
So my question now is "Just how many more caverns and rock domes are we finally going to see compromised before this plays out?"
I am confused, I thought we were into the speculation and assumption that the whole dome was compromised. The methane is coming out in a very large area from the sinkhole. The sinkhole was (as we were told) from the collapse of the cavern but the bubbling sites have never been explained. Now this finding by CB does make sense as to why the bubbling sites are so far out. Actually I am going to go see if I can locate a map of the bubbling sites. It has been a while since we have seen those....

PS- Kat, I will do what I can to follow your instructions and post an image properly.

Originally posted by AuntB
reply to post by happykat39

 

So my question now is "Just how many more caverns and rock domes are we finally going to see compromised before this plays out?"
I am confused, I thought we were into the speculation and assumption that the whole dome was compromised. The methane is coming out in a very large area from the sinkhole. The sinkhole was (as we were told) from the collapse of the cavern but the bubbling sites have never been explained. Now this finding by CB does make sense as to why the bubbling sites are so far out. Actually I am going to go see if I can locate a map of the bubbling sites. It has been a while since we have seen those....

PS- Kat, I will do what I can to follow your instructions and post an image properly.

edit on 12-12-2012 by AuntB because: picture- working on download

First of all, once the picture is on your hard drive you can re-size and crop it in paint. If you do that and save it be sure to select the JPEG option under the file name line or paint will save it as a PNG file that won't upload to ATS.

As to the whole salt dome being compromised, I was under the impression that areas away from the failed cavern were still undamaged and stable. But this last bit of info about the cavern that leaked out it's whole load of methane leads me to now believe that there is far more damage to the entire dome that we don't yet know about.

Really not a lot of new info at this site except this...

SOURCE

The Department of Health & Hospitals (DHH) and the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) along with parish officials have scheduled a briefing for Bayou Corne residents specific to health concerns.

Information relative to updates of the sinkhole situation will not be presented at the meeting.

The meeting will be focused on concerns brought up by residents to DHH & DEQ in past briefings.

The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 6 p.m. at the Assumption Parish Community Center at 4910 Highway 1 in Napoleonville.

Looks like the squeaky wheel is going to get greased a little earlier than first planned. CajunBoy posted that the next meeting would be on the 18th but this one is a full five days earlier. But they seem to be saying that they are not going to be addressing current updates, just past questions.

I believe that the whole salt dome has been fractured. It may not have spread throughout the whole area yet but I believe that it will. The main reason I believe this is because of the geology of the area.

Geologists and state officials now believe that Texas Brine's production cavern below Bayou Corne collapsed from the side and filled with rock, oil and gas from deposits around the salt formation. The pressure in the cavern was too great and caused a "frack out." Like Mother Nature's own version of the controversial oil and gas drilling technique known as "fracking," brine and other liquids were forced vertically out of the salt cavern, fracturing rock toward the surface and causing the ground to give way. "In the oil field, you've heard of hydraulic fracturing; that's what they're using to develop gas and oil wells around the country ..."What is a frack-out is, is when you get the pressure too high and instead fracturing where you want, it fractures all the way to the surface," said Gary Hecox, a geologist with the Shaw Environmental Group, at a recent community meeting in Assumption Parish. Texas Brine brought in the Shaw group to help mitigate the sinkhole.

Bayou Frack-Out: The Massive Oil and Gas Disaster You've Never Heard Of I truly believe that there could be some truth to this article. The salt dome could be "fracking-out".

Researching sinkholes etc.... I came upon this. THE OCNELE MARI SALT MINE COLLAPSING SINKHOLE
Now this incident is not the same as Bayou Corne but we see a salt mine that was compromised and has not stabilized. This has been slowly collapsing for years.

reply to post by AuntB


I just read the entire "frack out" article you linked to. Not only are your comments based on it dead on but there is a pretty complete history of the sinkhole in the article as well. I recommend that anyone really interested in this disaster should read the article.

I'm watching seismos LA08 and LA09 in GEE right now--something is happening, but I have no idea what: gas or fluid movement, maybe?? The amplitudes are fairly high at LA09--about 95 microns/sec.

CERI LA09

ETA: I just wanted to add, it wasn't a earthquake signature. Maybe a truck idling near the monitor or a helicopter flying overhead... it's really hard to tell what it could be. I'd love to be able to see real-time video of the activity at the site; then we could connect the signatures on the seismos to all of the man-made activity.

I find it interesting that there have been no new sampling results in almost a month. I would assume they are still taking samples. Data/Sampling

I see from reading the Assumption updates that Shaw is still on site so what are the results? I am linking a page and if you select Situation Summary it will give you the up-to-date power point. GOHSEP Response to Bayou Corne incident

reply to post by AuntB


Everything at the site has been slowing down. They are not really rushing to anything. Meetings are growing further apart. Flyovers are more rare. And information in general is scarce. Residents now are furious, they are about to direct all anger towards MIA Governor Bobby Jindal. They are already feeling forgotten. Too much blame is to go around. They already screwed the dome once before and the last time could of been part of a series of event that led to this.

The residents are trying there damnest to get the word out. They already tried contacting every news source in the state and many others networks. Emotions are going to explode soon.

By the way, the meeting tonight with DHH was an hour an a half waste. Many are stupid angry for a waste of time.

reply to post by CajunBoy


So what you are saying is that everybody from Texas Brine to the highest levels of state government are porking the pooches. And the pooches are the residents of the affected areas. The real problem as I see it is that the area being affected is only comprised of a couple of relatively small communities and the government, along with big business, have screwed over much larger areas with impunity. Just think of the whole GoM from the B P disaster and hurricane Katrina and you can see the scale of what they are able to sweep under the rug. The residents are starting to P O the big boys and they are going to just turn their backs and ignore them until the press gets tired of reporting it, what little they report anyway, and the whole thing will disappear like dust, or methane + H2S in this case, in the wind.

I never hear anything about this on our news and I live about 60 miles away give or take, but it is never on our news. I hope the area is OK but this isn't looking good, I have an aunt that lives about 10 miles from there, I wonder how much of that area is going to eventually be declared unlivable ... it's horrible no one is giving these people the answers they need.

I'm at work right now but Assumptonia just posted a new distance map and size map for the sinkhole.