The Art of Teaching Science Blog

As I write this post, BP has begun their “top kill” maneuver to stop the flow of oil by plugging the well with mud. This technique has not been used at such great depths, and we’ll have to wait perhaps for a couple of days to find out the result of this approach to stopping this debacle.

As I’ve read the wrenching stories, and seen the awful scenes of oil in the water, and oil reaching the beaches and marshes, I’ve also wondered about previous oil spills, and what precedence there is for this calamity. Here is a chart of very large oil spills since 1967. Note that the largest spill was not accidental, but was done by Iraq during the first Gulf War. But the second largest spill was accidental and it happened in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1979, the Ixtoc I oil well beneath the waters of the Gulf of Mexico (near the Bay of Campeche) blew out, and created the world’s worst accidental oil disaster in history. More than 3 million barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico, and it took nearly 9 months for the well to be capped. In the meantime, 162 miles of Texas beaches were affected, and thousands of birds were killed. According to SkyTruth President John Amos, the Ixtoc I is a perfect example of the present BP Gulf oil spill, and we should use it a model to help us understand the present oil spill.

According to SkyTruth, which uses remote sensing and digital mapping help us understand environmental consequences of human activities, the estimate of the spill is much larger than released by BP. According to BP, there are 5,000 barrels of oil being leaked into the Gulf daily; SkyTruth believes it is closer to 26,000 barrels of oil per day, more than five times as large!

The SkyTruth map below gives some perspective to the extent of the oil slick that has extended to an area about the size of South Carolina throughout the Gulf Coast area. It is causing damage to beaches, wildlife, and marches up and down the Gulf.