UPDATE: Wondering How Legit this is
The reputable Dr Stephen A Rinehart with a degree from Georgia Tech and years of government work reports witnessing the explosions as well.
UPDATE: Photos Of Gulf Oil Spill Seafloor Explosion and Collapse Below
UPDATE: Videos Below appear to now confirm the seafloor collapse and explosion
UPDATE: US Senator Nelson of Florida Now Says Reports Confirm Multiple Leaks From Sea Floor Surrounding Oil Well (Below)
UPDATE: Explosions continue and caused topkill to fail
UPDATE: Over 2 weeks later US Senator Nelson confirms Multiple Leaks from the Sea Floor Surrounding the Oil Rig 06/07/1020
To date we have yet to here a single report from the Main Stream Media about these explosions or the additional leaks that have been reported as a result of these explosions, until now.
FireDogLake Reports US Senator Nelson From Florida has confirmed these reports today on MSNBC:
Oil and gas are leaking from the seabed surrounding the BP Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida told Andrea Mitchell today on MSNBC. Nelson, one of the most informed and diligent Congressmen on the BP gulf oil spill issue, has received reports of leaks in the well, located in the Mississippi Canyon sector. This is potentially huge and devastating news.
If Nelson is correct in that assertion, and he is smart enough to not make such assertions lightly, so I think they must be taken at face value, it means the well casing and well bore are compromised and the gig is up on containment pending a completely effective attempt to seal the well from the bottom via successful “relief wells”. In fact, I have confirmed with Senator Nelson’s office that they are fully aware of the breaking news and significance of what the Senator said to Andrea Mitchell.
Furthermore, contrary to the happy talk propounded by BP, the Obama Administration and the press, the likely success of the “relief well” effort on the first try in August is nowhere near a certainty; and certainly nowhere near the certainty it is being painted as.
The firedoglake blog is reporting
A series of explosions appears to have collapsed the seafloor and blown up the BOP at the well head. Oil and gas are billowing out of a depression in the seafloor where the BOP used to be at an exponentially greater rate than anything seen before.
While the live feed still shows the leak is intact people watching the feed are suggesting the cameras are now looping old video feed.
Could This Be The Start Of The Following Extinction Event Posted to Slashdot?
From Slashdot:
Here’s a listing of several scientific and economic guides for estimating the volume of flow of the leak in the Gulf of Mexico erupting at a rate of somewhere around 1 million barrels per day. A new video released shows the largest hole spewing oil and natural gas from an aperture 5 feet in diameter at a rate of approximately 4 barrels per second. The oil coming up through 5,000 feet of pressurized salt water acts like a fractionating column. What you see on the surface is just around 20% of what is actually underneath the approximate 9,000 square miles of slick on the surface. The natural gas doesn’t bubble to the top but gets suspended in the water, depleting the oxygen from the water. BP would not have been celebrating with execs on the rig just prior to the explosion if it had not been capable producing at least 500,000 barrels per day — under control. If the rock gave way due to the out-of-control gushing (or due to a nuke being detonated to contain the leak), it could become a Yellowstone Caldera type event, except from below a mile of sea, with a 1/4-mile opening, with up to 150,000 psi of oil and natural gas behind it, from a reserve nearly as large as the Gulf of Mexico containing trillions of barrels of oil. That would be an Earth extinction event.
The First Noted Venting Hole (TNVH)
Here are some photos of another blog that has reported the same thing (more photos and live updates on the blog here).
Videos Appear to confirm
Video of ROV working on top of crater over collapsed seafloor
Here a ROV Works on the Gulf oil spill BOP during the topkill operation. This video appears to confirm widespread reports tat the seafloor collapsed Saturday as we watch massive amounts of oil shot from 5 new leaks found on the BOP.
Video of beginning of explosion that caused seafloor to collapse
Something the Media has failed to reveal
The Gulf oil spill is on top of a major tectonic plate that is prone to Earthquakes. A 5.2 magnitude earthquake hit the area of the Gulf oil spill in 2006
The following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A strong earthquake occurred about 250 miles (405 km) south-southwest of Apalachicola, Florida at 8:56 AM MDT, Sep 10, 2006 (10:56 AM EDT in Florida). The magnitude and location may be revised when additional data and further analysis results are available. This earthquake was felt in parts of Florida, Georgia and Alabama. No reports of damage or casualties have been received at this time.
Felt ReportsItems were knocked from shelves and seiches were observed in swimming pools in parts of Florida. Felt (IV) at Brooksville, Crystal River, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Osteen, Palm Coast, Panama City, Port Saint Joe, Santa Rosa Beach, Titusville and Wimauma, Florida. Felt in much of Florida including (III) at Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee and Tampa. Felt in parts of Georgia including (III) at Atlanta. Also felt in parts of Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Also felt at Freeport, The Bahamas and at Cancun and Merida, Mexico.
Tectonic SummaryThis earthquake was centered beneath the Gulf of Mexico, well distant from the nearest active plate boundary. Such “midplate” earthquakes are much less common than earthquakes occurring on faults near plate boundaries, and most probably represent the release of long-term tectonic stresses that ultimately originate from forces applied at the plate boundary. This is the largest of more than a dozen shocks that have been instrumentally recorded from the eastern Gulf of Mexico in the past three decades, and it is the most widely felt. The most recent significant earthquake in the region occurred on February 10th, 2006 and had a magnitude of 5.2. We have not associated this earthquake with a specific causative fault.
And if the situation wasn’t scary enough…
Given the horrific news about this oil volcano, here is a link to a geological study did on the gulf in 2005. It is deeply disturbing in it’s implications. Besides oil deposit pockets, there are huge pockets of methane gas, hurricanes, earthquakes…. and (DRUM ROLL) … NOW Volcanoes
That’s right the floor of the Gulf of Mexico is full of volcanoes.
And To Make Matters Worse
UPDATE: Does Senator Claims Confirm These Reports 06/07/1020
To date we have yet to here a single report from the Main Stream Media about these explosions or the additional leaks that have been reported as a result of these explosions, until now. FireDogLake Reports US Senator Nelson From Florida has confirmed these reports today on MSNBC:
Oil and gas are leaking from the seabed surrounding the BP Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida told Andrea Mitchell today on MSNBC. Nelson, one of the most informed and diligent Congressmen on the BP gulf oil spill issue, has received reports of leaks in the well, located in the Mississippi Canyon sector. This is potentially huge and devastating news. If Nelson is correct in that assertion, and he is smart enough to not make such assertions lightly, so I think they must be taken at face value, it means the well casing and well bore are compromised and the gig is up on containment pending a completely effective attempt to seal the well from the bottom via successful “relief wells”. In fact, I have confirmed with Senator Nelson’s office that they are fully aware of the breaking news and significance of what the Senator said to Andrea Mitchell.
Furthermore, contrary to the happy talk propounded by BP, the Obama Administration and the press, the likely success of the “relief well” effort on the first try in August is nowhere near a certainty; and certainly nowhere near the certainty it is being painted as.
From Washington’ Blog
Senator Nelson: The BP Well May Have Lost Structural Integrity Beneath the Sea Floor
On June 2nd, Bloomberg pointed out:
Plugging the well is another challenge even after BP successfully intersects it, Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor, said. BP has said it believes the well bore to be damaged, which could hamper efforts to fill it with mud and set a concrete plug, Bea said.
Bea is an expert in offshore drilling and a high-level governmental adviser concerning disasters.
On the same day, the Wall Street Journal noted that there might be a leak in BP’s well casing 1,000 feet beneath the sea floor:
BP PLC has concluded that its “top-kill” attempt last week to seal its broken well in the Gulf of Mexico may have failed due to a malfunctioning disk inside the well about 1,000 feet below the ocean floor.
***
The broken disk may have prevented the heavy drilling mud injected into the well last week from getting far enough down the well to overcome the pressure from the escaping oil and gas, people familiar with BP’s findings said. They said much of the drilling mud may also have escaped from the well into the rock formation outside the wellbore.
Yesterday, Senator Ben Nelson told MSNBC that he’s investigating reports of oil seeping up from additional leak points on the seafloor:
Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL): Andrea we’re looking into something new right now, that there’s reports of oil that’s seeping up from the seabed… which would indicate, if that’s true, that the well casing itself is actually pierced… underneath the seabed. So, you know, the problems could be just enormous with what we’re facing.
Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC: Now let me understand better what you’re saying. If that is true that it is coming up form that seabed, even the relief well won’t be the final solution to cap this thing. That means that we’ve got oil gushing up at disparate places along the ocean floor.
Sen. Nelson: That is possible, unless you get the plug down low enough, below where the pipe would be breached.
Indeed, loss of integrity in the well itself may explain why BP is drilling its relief wells more than ten thousand feet beneath the leaking pipes on the seafloor (and see this).
And prominent oil industry insider Matt Simmons believes that the well casing may have been destroyed when the oil rig exploded.
On May 27th, Simmons addressed this issue on MSNBC:
On May 26th, Simmons referred to this again on a second appearance on MSNBC:
And he referred to it again on Bloomberg on May 28th: