Allen optimistic next steps will plug Gulf leak

July 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – A hundred days into BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the top U.S. official overseeing the spill response said on Wednesday he was confident a relief well preceded by a so-called “static kill” would plug the leak for good.

While retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen would not go so far as to say the next steps are foolproof, he said at a briefing in New Orleans, “We are optimistic that we will get this thing done.”

“This has been done before. It’s not novel technology,” he said.

Allen also said he would meet with southern Louisiana parish officials on Thursday to discuss future response staffing needs. Oil has been dissipating on the water’s surface since BP sealed the cap on the well two weeks ago, shrinking skim and boom needs, he said.

He said people made jobless by the spill who found work with BP on the response will still be needed to retrieve boom, test seafood for safety and monitor or clean shorelines.

“Sooner or later we’re going to have to size the fleet to where it matches what our requirements are,” Allen said. “We will have frank, open discussions about it.”

The static kill involves pumping drilling mud and cement into the Macondo well from the top. Allen said the procedure, on schedule for Monday, could start late Sunday if preparations go smoothly.

New BP Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley told NPR on Wednesday that the static kill could plug the leak by Monday or Tuesday. But BP and Allen said the relief well remains a critical follow-up to ensure the job is done.

(Reporting by Kristen Hays; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Realistic tsunami generator would help protect against future catastrophe

March 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 24 (ANI): Scientists have developed and successfully tested a unique wave-generating machine that mimics the activity of real-life tsunamis with unprecedented realism, which would help protect against future catastrophe.

The simulator, tested in an Oxfordshire laboratory, has copied the first massive wave of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

Developed and built with Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funding, the tsunami generator will improve understanding of how tsunamis behave.

Mounted in a 45 metre-long wave channel, the tsunami generator uses a pneumatic (air-driven) system comprising a fan and control valves to suck up water into a tank and then release it in a controlled way.

This makes the facility fundamentally different from all other wave simulators worldwide, which generally use pistons to produce waves by pushing at the water.

The new pneumatic technique has a range of advantages over a piston-based approach. In particular, tests by UCL researchers at HR Wallingford have shown that it can reproduce the draw-down phenomenon that is characteristic of ”trough-led’ tsunamis where the sea is sucked out first before rushing back towards the shoreline.

Within the wave channel, or ‘flume’, the waves created by the tsunami generator are directed over a model coastal slope, enabling their behaviour and effects to be studied in detail.

Specifically, tests with this facility will be used to enhance understanding of the water flows and forces unleashed by tsunamis.

This will aid development of more effective evacuation guidelines for parts of the world potentially at risk from future tsunamis.

This will enable buildings and infrastructure in vulnerable parts of the world to be designed and built in ways that help them withstand these destructive events.

Moreover, because this understanding will make it easier to predict the behaviour of tsunamis at shorelines and when they move inland, the tsunami generator will make it possible to strengthen emergency and contingency planning at regional, national and individual community level.

According to said Dr Tiziana Rossetto, EPICENTRE’s Director, “We’ve already used the generator to mimic the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami at 1:75scale. The data gathered should be validated and then made available to the scientific community within the next two years.” (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

NASA scientist makes first full assessment of Africa’s mangrove forests

August 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, August 21 (ANI): A NASA scientist has made what is believed to be the first full assessment of the African continent’s mangrove forests.

Environmental scientist Lola Fatoyinbo of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) developed and employed a method that can be used across the continent, overcoming expensive, ad hoc, and inconsistent modes of ground-based measurement.

“We’ve lost more than 50 percent of the world’s mangrove forests in a little over half a century; a third of them have disappeared in the last 20 years alone,” said Fatoyinbo, whose earlier study of Mozambique’s coastal forests laid the groundwork for the continent-wide study.

“Hopefully, this technique will offer scientists and officials a method of estimating change in this special type of forest,” she added.

Mangroves are the most common ecosystem in coastal areas of the tropics and sub-tropics.

The swampy forests are essential, especially in densely-populated developing countries, for rice farming, fishing and aquaculture (freshwater and saltwater farming), timber, and firewood.

Some governments also increasingly depend on them for eco-tourism.

The large, dense root systems are a natural obstacle that helps protect shorelines against debris and erosion.

Mangroves are often the first line of defense against severe storms, tempering the impact of strong winds and floods.

These coastal woodlands also have a direct link to climate, sequestering carbon from the atmosphere at a rate of about 100 pounds per acre per day, which is comparable to the per acre intake by tropical rainforests (though rainforests cover more of Earth’s surface).

“To my knowledge, this study is the first complete mapping of Africa’s mangroves, a comprehensive, historic baseline enabling us to truly begin monitoring the welfare of these forests,” said Assaf Anyamba, a University of Maryland-Baltimore County expert on vegetation mapping, based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Fatoyinbo’s research combines multiple satellite observations of tree height and land cover, mathematical formulas, and “ground-truthing” data from the field to measure the full expanse and makeup of the coastal forests.

Her measurements yielded three new kinds of maps of mangroves: continental maps of how much land the mangroves cover; a three-dimensional map of the height of forest canopies across the continent; and biomass maps that allow researchers to assess how much carbon the forests store.

“Beyond density or geographical size of the forests, the measurements get to the heart of the structure, or type, of mangroves,” explained Fatoyinbo. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Scientists identify lake shorelines on Mars

August 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, August 9(ANI): A team of scientists, using images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on board NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, have reported direct evidence of lake shorelines in the Shalbatana Vallis in Mars.

Scientists generally believe that warm, wet conditions existed on Mars until only about 3.7 billion years ago.

In recent years, however, remote sensing studies have hinted at the existence of Martian lakes during the Hesperian epoch (about 3.5 billion to 1.8 billion years ago).

Now, sub-meter-scale images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show clear, unambiguous evidence of shorelines of a lake more than 450 meters (1,476 feet) deep that formed about 3.4 billion years ago.

The study indicates that conditions favorable for flowing water and lake formation may have existed for thousands of years on Mars during the Hesperian epoch, which has been thought to be a period during which surface conditions did not allow significant hydrological activity.

According to the researchers, the sedimentary deposits associated with the lake in Shalbatana Vallis should be considered a priority for further study by future landed Mars missions. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Noah’s flood” may have not been as biblical in proportion as previously thought

February 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 7 (ANI): A new study has suggested that the ancient flood that some scientists think gave rise to the Noah story in the Bible may not have been so massive in proportion as earlier believed.

Researchers generally agree that, during a warming period about 9,400 years ago, an onrush of seawater from the Mediterranean spurred a connection with the Black Sea, then a largely freshwater lake.

That flood turned the lake into a rapidly rising sea.
A previous theory said that the Black Sea rose up to 195 feet (60 meters), possibly burying villages and spawning the tale of Noah’s flood and other inundation folklore.

But, according to a report in National Geographic News, the new study, which largely focused on relatively undisturbed underwater fossils, suggests a rise of no more than 30 feet (10 meters).

Marine geologist Liviu Giosan and colleagues carbon-dated the shells of pristine mollusk fossils, which the researchers say bear no evidence of epic flooding.

Found in sediment samples taken from where the Black Sea meets the Danube River, the shells “weren’t eroded, agitated, or moved,” said Giosan, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts.

“We know the mud is exactly the same age as the shells and so can determine what the sea level was about 9,400 years ago,” he added.

The results suggest the Black Sea rose 15 to 30 feet (5 to 10 meters), rather than the 150 to 195 feet (50 to 60 meters) first suggested 13 years ago by Columbia University geologist William Ryan and colleagues.

In 1993, a Black Sea expedition found evidence of former shorelines and coastal dunes at depths of up to 390 feet (120 meters).

According to researchers, these areas had been flooded when the Mediterranean and the Sea of Marmara, which lies between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, breached a rocky barrier across the Bosporus, the Turkish strait that links the Maramara with the Black Sea.

Before such a flood, Ryan and colleagues said the flooded regions may have been rife with agricultural settlements.

His research supports the notion that the flood submerged some 62,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers), driving out farmers in droves, thereby supercharging the agricultural development of Europe, to the west.

However, Giosan’s new study, indicates a less catastrophic influx, submerging only about 1,240 square miles (2,000 square kilometers).

That’s because, according to the new study, the Black Sea’s pre-flood water levels were significantly higher than Ryan’s study suggested.

As a result, there may have been much less water cascading through the Bosporus and onto the exposed continental shelf surrounding the Black Sea. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,