Friday, June 25, 2010

Second Leak?

Periodically, I sweep the live feeds of the ROVs monitoring the Gulf Oil Spill. This morning I saw something that has me a touch more worried. This is the feed from the Intervention ROV1. At first glance, it looks like it's off-line but then you see something faintly green and moving in the background. If you watch long enough, you see bits of sea detritus or one of the ROV cables move back and forth so you know that the cameras are on. I tried doing a print screen of the shot but instead of a picture of the screen, it kept streaming the live feed.

So what are we seeing? The fact that the light is off and that the depth gauge in the upper right corner is consistently reading 4900 ft tells me that a second leak has sprung from the sea floor. Judging from what I can see of the plume, it looks fairly strong too. Many people have speculated that there have been additional breeches. I think this confirms it.

As an aid, here are the links to some of the other ROVs:

Enterprise 2 - this one has been watching the top of the BOP and the cap. Incidentally, you can see that the BOP is starting to list.
Skandi 1 - Top of the BOP from a different angle
Skandi 2 - in a holding pattern at the moment of this posting.
Intervention 2 - currently offline
Enterprise 1 - currently offline
Q4000 1 - in a holding pattern at the moment
Q4000 2 - in a holding pattern at the moment

For quick check, here's all at once.

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