The Deep Sea Drilling Project

One evidence of this theory is molten material. Molten Material is magma erupting from mid-ocean ridges. Alvin the submarine found weird rocks shaped like pillows or toothpaste. This tells us this magma cools quickly underwater. Another type of evidence are magnetic stripes. Magnetic stripes are patterns in the ocean floor to prove Earth’s magnetic field has reversed itself in history. Scientist also looked at the “magnetic memory” of the rocks. Scientist drilled pipes through water to drill holes into the ocean floor. Scientists discovered that the older rocks were further away and younger rocks were closer. Those were the three types of evidence that scientist used to support the theory of Sea Floor Spreading.

According to the cold/hot 2 lens, Brooke Jarvis reading, “The Deepest Dig” is partially good. However, later in the reading she could have done a better job if she would have mention the effects that could occurred due to the process of the seafloor mining complexity of the system. But what the okay part that Jarvis does is mentioning the activity of the sea floor mining tool, “Nautilus’s plan for Solwara 1, which the company intends to begin mining in 2017, is to use two large robots excavators to remove chimneys and the first 160 feet of the seafloor” (127.) Jarvis does a great job here telling us about the Solwara 1 system of this tool how is going to do a part of the seafloor

Does anything out weigh the importance of our planet’s health? You would be surprised by the number of people who look the other way when it comes to keeping the planet clean. Offshore drilling is just one of the major environmental issues that has existed for many years and still continues to be a problem. The topic of offshore drilling not only touches on environmental issues but also political, economic, and ethical issues. All of these tie into the huge debate over offshore drilling and its impacts on the environment. But when the human race depends on oil, how can we ignore the fact of drilling for oil off the coast of our land. Investing in greenhouse energy is just one of several ways to help keep the

Challenger Deep was given it’s name after the British survey ship, Challenger II, which recorded the location’s depth with an echo-sounder in 1951 (About the Mariana). Although the Challenger II is recognized as the first vessel to obtain a near accurate depth recording, Mariana Trench was actually first discovered by the H.M.S Challenger’s expedition in the 1870’s (About the Mariana).

The Deepwater Horizon was a nine year old, ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible, offshore drilling rig built in South Korea. In 2008, British Petroleum (BP) leased it from Transocean to drill for oil in the Gulf Coast. In September 2009, the rig drilled the deepest oil well in history at a depth of 35,055-feet. On April 20, 2010 while drilling the rig exploded at 9:45PM (CST), killing eleven workers and injuring seventeen others. It was caused when methane gas from the well shot all the way up and out of the drill column, expanded onto the platform then ignited and exploded. The explosion then led the rig to burn, with the resulting fire unable to be extinguished 2 days later it sinked leaving

New technology continued to develop including rotary rigs that replaced pile drivers. Texaco and Shell then established “barge drilling,” which was the process of towing small mobile platforms to new locations at the end of drilling jobs (CITE). This resulted in the adaptation of land-drilling methods in the continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico, as the oil companies continued to grow more confident operating offshore.

Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion happened nearly six years ago there have been countless reports on the explosion and scientific studies on what cause it as well as its impact. There have also been investigations into the internal workers of BP and they concerns about the rig prior to the explosion. This case brings up social, political and environmental issues to light and the approaches BP had to each of these issues.

A tragic explosion on April 20th, 2010 changed the Gulf of Mexico and the area surrounding it completely. This was the disastrous explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The oil industry has been a large part of the United States’ history for decades and the company BP has been part of it since the start of oil production. According to the article “Standard Oil Company and Trust American Corporation”, John D. Rockefeller ran the Standard Oil Company from 1870- 1911 and controlled almost all of the United States’ oil production (Standard Oil Company 1). The Standard Oil company split into several companies in the early 1900s. The British Petroleum Company purchased some of the Standard Oil Company in Ohio and was later renamed “BP” (Standard Oil Company 12). BP leased the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in 2001. It was built in 2001 by Hyundai Heavy Industries and owned by the company Transocean (Blanchfield 6). 9 years later, the rig had an unfortunate incident that had a lasting impact.

The exploration of oil drilling into the Gulf of Mexico dates back to 1938, when the Pure Oil and

Depleting reserves, high oil prices and spectacular offshore discoveries concentrated a global attention to deep water (National Geographic, p.3). Joel and Bourne (2010) claim “the Gulf of Mexico now accounts for 30 percent of U.S. production, with half of that coming from deep water (1,000 to 4,999 feet)”. The U.S. government roughly calculated that the deep Gulf might contain 45 billion barrels of oil (NG, p.44). Hence, this fact gave new reasons for oil companies to drill oil wells in that region. The Minerals Management Service (MMS), the national agency that administrated offshore drilling, used to claim that the possibilities of blowout were less than one percent, and that if one did happen, it would not release much oil (National

Oil is one of the most precious substances on Earth. It takes millions of years to form and has many applications throughout the world. Offshore oil drilling in the coastal waters of the United States is a technique used by companies to extract the oil buried deep beneath the ocean floor. Many people refer to the ways that offshore drilling will help the economy, both locally and globally, but despite the apparent benefits, the process is not without controversy. Oilrigs produce wastes which affect marine life and the associated fishing industry, and they pose a danger to the employees who operate them. Because of these consequences, the United States should look to restrict offshore oil drilling.

A handful of scientist predicted that there were some “hot spots” in the ocean floor where tectonic plates met. These “hot spots” where in the very bottom of the earth’s crust. Every time these huge tectonic plates would shift, magma would spew out. However no one had ever seen these hot spots before 1977. So in 1975 French and American scientist submarine dived into the Mid-Atlantic ridge to find these “hot spot”.

The Deepwater Horizon was a drilling rig explosion that occurred April 20, 2010, and ended in a fire. The rig was owned and operated by Transocean, and the drilling was done by BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field (McGill & Schwartz, 2010). Due to drilling below sea level, the explosion caused a fire and resulted in the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, the death of 11 people and injured 17 others. The dangerous hydrocarbon gas that surrounded the blowout preventor malfunction, which caused the gas to encounter an ignition source was the cause of the explosion, and it led to massive oil spills in the offshore of the Gulf of Mexico (Crandall et al., 2014). It was considered to be the largest accidental oil spill in the world and an environmental

In April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon was in very deep water, and put a dynamic and semi-submersible offshore drilling owned by Transocean. Manipulation, while drilling in the Macondo Prospect, causing the explosion can not be controlled explosion on a platform in which 11 crew members were killed and ignited a fireball visible from 40 miles (64 km) away

The Deepwater horizon rig, owned by Transocean, an offshore-oil-drilling company that was leased by the BP oil company was located in the Macondo oil prospect in the Mississippi canyon. On April 20, 2010 Natural gas broke through a poorly constructed concrete core and traveled up to the platform where, once ignited, ruptured into an explosion. There were eleven fatalities and seventeen of the rigs workers were injured. Due to a malfunction in the rigs blowout preventer, which is supposed to close the oil channel, oil was spilled directly into the Gulf of Mexico when the rig capsized and sank, rupturing a riser. “A 2014 report by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board claimed that the blind shear rams,” giant blades that are supposed to cut through the pipe to help seal it, “had activated sooner than previously thought and may have actually punctured the pipe” (Britannica, 2015) Though many attempts were made to seal the well, it was not successfully sealed until September 19. Meaning oil was leaking into the waters of the Gulf of