Yep, Still Due To Morons

If you’ve read this blog for long, you know my fascination with a mud volcano in Indonesia called Lusi (HERE was my last post on it). Lusi erupted in May 2006 after morons from a natural gas drilling operation called Lapindo Brantas drilled a borehole without adequately protecting the hole from collapsing the surrounding strata. As a result, hot water and mud shot up through their hole to form a continuously bubbling mud volcano.

The mud from that volcano has now submerged 10 square kilometers, displaced up to 30,000 people, covered homes, highways, train rails, and factories, and resulted in the death of 13 people when a natural gas line exploded. Repeated attempts to staunch the flow have all failed, including diverting the mud to rivers and throwing down gigantic concrete balls and chains. Nature has refused all attempts.

Lapindo Brantas has attempted to claim that the volcano was not due to their own stupidity, but rather to an earthquake that happened a couple days before.

Now a geologist (Professor Richard Davies of Durham University's Centre for Research into Earth Energy Systems) has shown conclusively that their earthquake argument is full of hot air (or hot natural gas if you like):

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070731125741.htm

The report was published in the journal GSA Today.

I love it when morons in positions of authority get caught trying to worm their way out of responsibility. This study ought to be the last nail in the coffin for Lapindo, who is trying to get out of paying for the damages by claiming the volcano was “natural.”

But look on the bright side, Lapindo. Maybe you could open a mud spa resort!

Say No To Crack, Dam It

In a previous post, I reported about a 100-foot deep lake in the Andes mountains of Chile which had mysteriously drained away. After an investigation, geologists have now determined the cause: Crack.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/07/04/missing.lake.reut/index.html

No, not the drug. The lake had apparently been formed by a gigantic ice dam. The dam began melting, then cracked, and the water rushed out into a nearby fjord, then the sea, completely draining the lake (which was about the size of 10 football fields). Now the lake is slowly re-filling.

In my previous post I had hypothesized that the disappearance of the lake couldn’t possibly be blamed on global warming. Alas, though, seeing as how a crack in an ice dam was the cause, global warming IS a possible source for the warming of the dam.

And to think I had thought the problem was incontinence.

The Case Of The Mysteriously Disappearing Lake

Once upon a time (back in March), there was a beautiful, elfin lake high in the southern Andes of Chile, in the Bernardo O'Higgins National Park. It was a pleasant little lake, with a glacier feeding into it and little icebergs floating along. At only two square hectares, or just under 5 acres, it was small compared to many lakes. Just a wee thing. It drained out into a thin river.

But apparently the lake was pretty far off the beaten path, because two months later, in May, someone finally went back to it and found it was MISSING.

Yes, missing. The entire lake. Gone. Drained away. In place of this 100-foot deep lake was a 100-foot deep crater. The gleeful little icebergs had settled down onto the rocky floor of the lake, bereft of water. Geologists are at a loss to explain what happened:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/06/21/missing.lake.ap/index.html

Quote the article: “’The lake had simply disappeared,’ Juan Jose Romero, head of Chile's National Forest Service in the southernmost region of Magallanes, said Wednesday. ‘No one knows what happened.’” A team of geologists has been dispatched to investigate.

There were no earthquakes to produce rifts for the lake to drain into. There were no alien water-snatchers (I'm guessing). We can’t blame global warming for this one. So what could be the explanation?

One word: incontinence.

Let’s face it, we all have problems. Poor lake, all alone up there, no one to turn to. How embarrassing! It’s been holding its water for, say, about 5 million years. When you gotta go, you gotta go, and that thin little river wasn’t enough of a release. I know how it is. No, I don’t have an incontinence problem, but I’ve been trying to potty train my toddlers for months. Sometimes a diaper is the only way.

There’s no shame in it, little lake.

More Mud News

Man, I love this story. You may remember a previous post of mine back in early February on the mud volcano in Indonesia that was inadvertently created by morons drilling for natural gas. So far, waves of stinking, scalding, liquefied mud have engulfed four villages, a road, numerous factories, a railway, and forced the evacuation of 15,000 people, plus 12 deaths. Attempts to divert the mud failed miserably. In late February, I reported that the Indonesian authorities were going to try to plug the volcano with giant concrete balls, despite warnings from local geologists that it would be vain attempts. They’ve been trying that approach, and, of course, the concrete balls have made no difference at all.

So now they have been attempting to stem the flow with giant chains, as well as balls, thinking they could create some sort of “mesh” network. Again, local geologists have scoffed at the idea, mainly because no one has any idea what the topology of the flow is like “down there” or whether a “mesh” would make any difference:

http://www.physorg.com/news94797482.html

So far, there’s been no real difference. The good news, though, is that the volcano stopped spewing mud for about half an hour at one point, suggesting that it may wind up plugging itself. They called it “coughing”.

I’d call it wishful thinking.

Man versus Nature. Eventually, Nature always gets her way, and sometimes she gets revenge. She can be a cold, cold bitch. Apparently, she can also be hot and spewing....

Update (8/8/07): Studies have shown conclusively that the volcano was formed by the drilling and not by an earthquake. See this recent post: http://angrylabrat.blogspot.com/2007/08/yep-still-due-to-morons.html

Plugging The Volcano

Oh man! Do you remember my post about the mud volcano in East Java, where a natural gas-exploration company used faulty practices in their drilling and wound up creating a mud-spewing volcano that has since displaced 13,000 people and buried four villages? Well, make that 15,000 people, and the mud is still spreading. It has now threatened a major railway.

Even though leading geologists have published a report showing the catastrophe was caused by faulty drilling techniques, and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered the company to pay restitution, the drilling company, PT Lapindo Brantas, and Indonesian welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie, whose family owns the company, still claim the company is innocent and that the catastrophe is due to natural causes. Efforts to divert the mud flow to a local river have failed.

Here is a YouTube video of the volcano and the attempts to build diversion levees:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJdjcL4aPD4

Geologists suggest further attempts to divert the flow, to the sea, but the Indonesian government has other plans: Plug the hole!

http://www.physorg.com/news91194086.html

That's right. Their plan is to lower 2,000 high-density concrete balls into the hole of the volcano, thinking that the balls will slow the flow by 50 – 70%. A local geologist says it is doomed to failure and that the balls will likely be pushed back out.

Seems sorta like the story of the Dutch boy putting his finger in the dike, eh?

Lusi In The Sky With Mud

Once again someone has done something really, really stupid to upset the Earth. No, I'm not talking about the global warming report just put out by the U.N. that showed the phenomenon is man-made, I'm talking about some morons who went drilling for natural gas and wound up making a gigantic mud volcano.

Here's a news report: http://www.physorg.com/news89653591.html

And here's the Geological Society of America journal article from February's issue: HERE

The morons in question were an Indonesia gas-drilling company called Lapindo Brantas. Back in May 2006 they were boring a hole in the ground near Surbaya, East Java, to look for gas and didn't line the sides of their hole with steel casing like they should have, which would prevent against unexpected expulsion of pressurized water. As a result, they drilled through an area of limestone, exposing an underwater aquifer, and up the water went. Only the aquifer wasn't just water, it was mud. Lapindo Brantas tried to blame the accident on an earthquake that happened days before, but the study reported in the journal of the GSA proves it was man-made.

I can imagine the conversation that led to the accident:

Bore-hole guy: "Hey, Foreman, should I put some steel casing down the bore hole? You know, like we are required to."

Lapindo Foreman: "Naw, Bambang, what's the worst that could happen? A little mud? Let's save some time and money and just dig without it. Get to work!"

What resulted was a mud volcano – a giant cone of constantly-spewing mud. This one has come to be named "Lusi". Ten square kilometers around the volcano are now uninhabitable and 13,000 people are permanently displaced. Four villages were completely erased, along with 25 factories, and 13 people died when a gas pipeline collapsed. The mud flow will likely continue for years, and there will probably be a collapse of earth around it resulting in the formation of a caldera.

How do you say "Oops" in Indonesian?

Maybe some good could come of this, eh? The power of positive thinking! Why, this could be the world's largest mud bath. They could make a spa for tourists. No? How about an SUV off-roading mud race? Yeah, that's the ticket. Those crazy Javanese and their monster trucks….

Okay, fine, it's a horrible catastrophe with no possible golden lining that resulted from someone's stupidity. Go figure.


UPDATE: http://angrylabrat.blogspot.com/2007/02/plugging-volcano.html

Clueless Conservatives and Geology

When you go to one of our nation's breathtaking National Parks with your family, you get a chance to see nature in action. No, I'm not talking about the raccoons attacking the dumpster at the public campground, or the squirrels begging for your chips. I'm talking about those amazing vistas that make you stop and think about the wonder and mystery of their creation, or the little things, like that endangered flower or mossy stream, that you could stare at for hours and never be able to comprehend the incredible complexity of it. Such awesome sights could make even me start to believe in some greater power at the root of it all (if I were slightly delirious from fever – being an atheist).

Take, for instance, our majestic Grand Canyon. We're all familiar with its fantastic, multicolored rock formations and nearly unfathomable depth. Geologists have studied this natural wonder since the late 1860's and tell us that it was formed by erosive action of the Colorado River over the past 5 to 6 million years, and that the rock formations are between 2 and 2.5 billion years old. Given that Earth has been calculated to be about 4.5 billion years old, that makes portions of this natural phenomenon half as old as our world. Since most of these geologists have studied their field and the Canyon most of their adult lives, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Now, if you were to go into the Grand Canyon's interpretive center and try to buy a book on the Canyon's geologic formation, wouldn't you expect that book to be scientifically accurate according to the expert opinions of geologists? And if you had geological questions about the age of the Canyon, wouldn't you want the rangers to give you a straight answer? Unfortunately, neither of these assumptions are true.

Three years ago, the National Park Service approved the sale of a Creationist book entitled "Grand Canyon: A Different View" in the Canyon's book stores and museums. This book, sold alongside legitimate science texts (such as this one), argues a literalist interpretation of the Bible, that the world is less than 10,000 years old, and that the Canyon was formed by Noah's flood. Park officials, scientists, and academics were appalled and called for the government to remove the book. After all, an interpretive center is a place of scientific learning, not a library or common book store. They must be held to a higher level of accuracy. Yet three years later the book is still on the shelves.

Story:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_12/010493.php


also here:
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=801

Now the Bush administration has stepped its extremist fundamentalism up a notch, requiring that, when asked about the geologic age of the Canyon, park interpreters must say "no comment."

No comment?! About the primary scientific aspect of the Grand Canyon?! Pardon me while I bash my head into a wall until all common reason and scientific learning leaves me and I become a vegetable. Then, and only then, will this seem to make sense to me.

As I've commented before (here and here), it is appalling to me as a scientist how the neoconservatives who run this country have waged a war against science and reason. There is no room for Faith in Science, for therein lies ignorance and bias. Legitimate scientific study is a slow, meticulous, peer-reviewed process that leaves little room for error. Nothing is taken on faith, and no amount of silly pseudoscientific drivel or Biblical accounting can make up for shoddy reason and ignorance. The book in question did not go through that process.

The Bible has some wonderful allegories and wisdoms for how we should live (and a large share of violence and horror that people tend to gloss over). But the priests, monks and apostles who wrote it between 1900 and 3800 years ago could not have known the incredibly rich tapestry of knowledge Science has accumulated since then, not counting the ignorance of the Dark Ages (when, by the way, the Catholic Church controlled Europe and science was considered evil). In terms of understanding the physical world around us, today's college freshman science major is far wiser than these supposed wise men were.

I call for the National Park Service to remove that book from their shelves immediately and put it where it belongs: Sunday School.