Sediment Thicknesses in the Gulf of Mexico

[MineralMan]

Sediment is essentially the mud and other debris that accumulates at the bottom of bodies of water. Eventually, it turns into sedimentary rock of one sort or another, but the sediment we're talking about has not yet done that.

In the Gulf of Mexico area where this wellhead is located, sediment thickness ranges from about 5-15 kilometers in thickness. Its composition varies, but it is not rock. It is sediment.

This is one of the reasons that an explosive solution, as proposed by some who don't understand the conditions, won't work. The high pressure gas and oil, pressurized at even deeper depths, will simply move slowly through these sediments and re-emerge at another location. We don't have any explosives that will remove 5-15 kilometers of sediment, and even a nuclear device could only fuse a small thickness into a solid. The gas and oil would soon emerge at another location.

Reference: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/sedthick/sedthick.html

[FarCenter]

1. Is there no hard rock layer above the Louann Salt?

[MineralMan]

2. Yes, there is.

The strata in the Gulf are very, very complicated. I'm not even discussing the entire strata, just the top sediment layer.

There's a very good pdf map of the gulf, with a cross-section from North to South at the link below. It's from Halliburton, but it's accurate and dates to long before this disaster. Zoom in to read the text. It's big.

http://www.halliburton.com/public/solutions/contents/Deep_Water/related_docs/GOM_DWMap.pdf

[FarCenter]

4. Thanks -- excellent information

According to the well plan, they were at 18,360' MD, so it looks like there would not have been much hard rock above the salt.

Sea bottom was 5067' MD.

http://www.energy.gov/open/documents/3.1_Item_2_Macondo_Well_07_Jun_1900.pdf

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. Listen, it worked in that movie Armagedon.

I don't need some fancy egg head elitist to tell me it wouldn't work again.