Is This a Fire Underwater?

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2 views of the spewage:

http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:45685.asx ?...

http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:21145.asx ?...

[Suich]

1. Looked like it to me, especially in the 1st clip.

What the heck is it??? Fire doesn't make any sense, does it?

:shrug:

[RC]

2. Imposable to have a fire underwater.

1. Not enough free oxygen to support combustion.
2. The water would cool the flames to way below the ignition point.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

3. I could swear I have seen underwater welding take place.

[obxhead]

6. as well as flares and cutting torches.

although the torch probably has a contained source of oxygen.

(I'm no expert and making no claims of such)

[Sinistrous]

8. Welding torches provide their own source of oxygen

through a separate hose. Those images do not show a fire.

[greyl]

11. Not so. nt

[Speck Tater]

4. Looks more like those two red hoses flopping around in the turbulence. nt

[FirstLight]

5. looks like fire to me too

whether it is impossible or not, I wouldn't think that this *can't* get any worse :scared:

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. I'm curious. What happened to the capture system that was going to reduce

this by 90+ percent? Seems like only yesterday this proclamation was being touted.

Point being, I fear it can still get worse, as that is exactly what has been occurring.

[Waiting For Everyman]

9. I saw that too -- found this

a video of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFiZrgLZ4Bg

a 100% sodium cube dropped into water, which is burning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgD0kCGpcwg

an underwater volcano burning:
http://news.discovery.com/videos/earth-underwater-volcano-caught-on-video.html

And then I found this, which I'd never heard of and is really scarey (the "clathrate gun hypothesis"):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis


It seems BP might've drilled into an underwater volcano, and if so, and if the clathrate gun hypothesis is correct, an unstoppable reaction might've been set off which could cause the Gulf to "cook" itself in our lifetimes.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. Thanks for the links. Going to spend some time

going through the info there. :hi:

[Chisox08]

12. I'm not an expert but that looks like fire to me

[flamingdem]

13. It can't be a fire. You must have oxygen for combustion to occur. nt

[Waiting For Everyman]

17. "methane ice burns when it meets fire"

from link below: "The Storegga Landslides: Catastrophic Underwater Natural Methane Explosions
http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=301

Oxygen is in water. But we'd better be wondering if there's a fire source, right there. I have a bad feeling about this.

[Catherina]

19. There are underwater volcanoes that erupt in the ocean

Here is a fascinating video of an underwater volcanic eruption http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/12/18/volcano.underwater.explosion.pacific/index.html


Magnesium flares easily burn under water.

Do we really know what they drilled into and what kind of oxidizers are down there? We're in unchartered territory

[Cetacea]

14. So...what exactly is it?

[flamingdem]

16. Maybe an optical illusion? nt

[FedUpWithIt All]

15. It looks like a large light source in the center. You can see a sort of framework on it .

Edited to add that it does really look like fire. I thought the oil's pattern was causing a backlit area to look like licks of flame. But watching for another moment it actually looks more life an actual flame. WEIRD.

[Feron]

18. No fire, just the video creating an illusion.

The cap behind the oil gushing is yellow. The white/gray color is the dispersant. And the brown/black stuff boiling out from under the cap needs no explanation.

This ROV's camera doesn't have the yellow tint:

http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:21145.asx?bkup=21327