Methane in Gulf Million Times Above Normal

Methane gas is up to 1 million times higher than the normal level near the Gulf of Mexico oil spill:  U.S. Researchers

Such incredibly high levels of methane could deplete oxygen and create a larger than usual dead zone in Gulf of Mexico.

An oceanography professor at Texas A&M University, who spent ten days researching the water quality near the BP Plc oil spill in the gulf, says methane gas levels in some areas close to the spill source are “astonishingly high,” a report said.

“There is an incredible amount of methane in there,” Kessler said, noting that his team of 12 researchers has found concentrations of methane that were 100,000 times higher than normal within an 8 km (5-mile) radius of BP’s ruptured wellhead.

“We saw them approach a million times above background concentrations” in some areas, Kessler said.

“At some locations, we saw depletions of up to 30 percent of oxygen based on its natural concentration in the waters. At other places, we saw no depletion of oxygen in the waters. We need to determine why that is,” he added.

The oxygen depletion are still above a critical level, he said, but the oil still leaking into the Gulf, at about 60,000 barrels per day.

“What is it going to look like two months down the road, six months down the road, two years down the road?”

The researchers believe measuring the methane level could provide a more accurate estimate of the rate of oil spill, and are hoping to have their own estimate soon.

“Give us about a week and we should have some preliminary numbers on that,” he said.

Related Links:

• Earth Enemy: Judge Martin Feldman
• Gulf of Mexico Worth More Dead Than Alive: Oil Industry
• World’s Largest Oil Tailing Pond – Satellite Images
• BP Hayward: Frankly, I Couldn’t Give a Damn!
• Oil Disasters

Gulf of California: Habitats to Watery Graves

For Public Consumption

Damage to threatened Gulf of California habitats can be reversed

Protecting vulnerable reproduction sites key to long-term health of fish populations

Once described by Jacques Cousteau as the “world’s aquarium,” the marine ecosystems of the Gulf of California are under threat. Destructive new fishing methods are depleting the sea’s habitats, creating areas that are ghosts of their former existences (see Scripps explorations story “Threatened Gulf”.

But, as Octavio Aburto-Oropeza of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego will describe during a presentation at the 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in San Diego, habitat conservation can revitalize once-depleted marine ecosystems (session: 8:30-10 a.m., Sunday, Feb. 21, Room 6D, San Diego Convention Center).

One recently emerging threat is a highly destructive fishing method called “hookah” diving in which fishermen use crude oxygen piping to walk along the seafloor for long periods. The technique is typically conducted at night when fish are resting, allowing the hookah fishermen to spear or grab large numbers of vulnerable fish and invertebrates.

Aburto-Oropeza’s findings on reversing the effects of such threats are part of a series of research studies headed by the newly launched Gulf of California Program based at Scripps Oceanography.

More than 20 different groups of high-value commercial species, including invertebrates such as blue crabs and fish such as snappers, grunts and snooks, are part of the mangrove forests of the Gulf of California, including this forest off Dazante Island inside the Loreto marine protected area. Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego

“In these studies, whether reefs or mangroves, we are trying to show that the destruction on the coast and overexploitation in other areas are diminishing the biomass (the amount of organisms in an ecosystem) in several areas,” said Aburto-Oropeza. “With lower biomass, the large predators, the keys to a robust marine ecosystem, are missing and that causes disruption down the marine food web.”

But there is hope to counteract such damage, says Aburto-Oropeza.

One successful example is Cabo Pulmo, a little-known protected area near the southern tip of the Baja peninsula that is thriving and a living example of the benefits of protected marine areas. Restricted of fishing since 1995, Cabo Pulmo features a robust mix of sea life and flourishing fish populations. Other successes include Coronado Island inside the Loreto marine park and Los Islotes inside Espiritu Santo marine park.

“Different sites recover in different ways, but they all have increased in biomass, especially top predators,” said Aburto-Oropeza.

“The common thing is that they have reduced or eliminated fishing activity.”

Beyond simply shielding certain locations, Aburto-Oropeza’s presentation will cover new research that reveals the strategic importance of protecting areas that are key for fish species populations. In particular, these include important sites such as fish “spawning aggregation” areas, where fish converge in large numbers to reproduce at select times of the year, and sensitive nursery habitats that are vital to ensuring healthy ecosystems.

“For some species these spawning aggregation events occur two to four times per year, and can represent 100 percent of the replenishment of their populations,” said Aburto-Oropeza.

Aburto-Oropeza and others recently calculated the economic value of mangroves at roughly $37,500 per hectare per year. An ongoing study has shown that a fish species called gulf corvina provided 3,500 tons of landings in 2009 in one community, a volume worth $3 million.

Contact: Mario Aguilera
scrippsnews@ucsd.edu
University of California – San Diego

Vanishing Lakes

Source: Media Relations

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of Washington (UW) have for the first time documented the sudden and complete drainage of a lake of meltwater from the top of the Greenland ice sheet to its base.

From those observations, scientists have uncovered a plumbing system for the ice sheet, where meltwater can penetrate thick, cold ice and accelerate some of the large-scale summer movements of the ice sheet.

According to research by glaciologists Sarah Das of WHOI and Ian Joughin of UW, the lubricating effect of the meltwater can accelerate ice flow 50- to 100 percent in some of the broad, slow-moving areas of the ice sheet.

“WHOI glaciologist Sarah Das stands in front of a block of ice that was raised up 6 meters by the sudden drainage of a meltwater lake in Greenland. (Photo by Ian Joughin, UW Polar Science Center)” Image may be copyrighted. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

“We found clear evidence that supraglacial lakes—the pools of meltwater that form on the surface in summer—can actually drive a crack through the ice sheet in a process called hydrofracture,” said Das, an assistant scientist in the WHOI Department of Geology and Geophysics. “If there is a crack or defect in the surface that is large enough, and a sufficient reservoir of water to keep that crack filled, it can create a conduit all the way down to the bed of the ice sheet.”

But the results from Das and Joughin also show that while surface melt plays a significant role in overall ice sheet dynamics, it has a more subdued influence on the fast-moving outlet glaciers (which discharge ice to the ocean) than has frequently been hypothesized. (To learn more about this result, read the corresponding news release from UW.)

The research by Das and Joughin was compiled into two complementary papers and published on April 17 in the online journal Science Express. The papers will be printed in Science magazine on May 9. Full press release Copyright ©2007 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, All Rights Reserved.