Oceans of the World

Drilling Holes in the Ocean Floor May Have Caused Flooding in Nashville and Other Areas

May 1 and May 2, 2010, torrential rains swelled the Cumberland River causing the river to rise out of its banks and flood parts of Nashville. Experts stated the roughly 13 inches dumped on Nashville over 48 hours occurs, on average, once every 5,000 to 8,000 years.

The Cumberland River, second largest tributary of the Ohio River, originates at the junction of Poor and Clover Forks near the City of Harlan in southeastern Kentucky. From that point the 694 mile long river flows generally southwesterly to Nashville, Tennessee; there it turns northwesterly and flows into Western Kentucky.

It enters the Ohio River at Smithland, Kentucky, 58.5 miles up-stream from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers near Cairo, Illinois, and 922 miles downstream from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The somewhat crescent shaped Cumberland River Basin lies entirely within the States of Kentucky and Tennessee and has a total area of 17,914 square miles, of which 10,695 square miles (60 %) are in Tennessee.

The Cumberland River contains seven dams; the dams above the Cumberland River were opened to keep water from flooding areas located around the dams. Once the dams were opened, water rushed into the Cumberland River. The topography of the basin varies from rugged mountains in the eastern upstream portion to rolling low-plateaus in the western, or downstream, sector. Elevations range from 4,150 feet above mean sea level (msl) in the Cumberland Mountains to 302 feet in the pool at the mouth of the river.
Theory

Besides being flooded with dams above and around it, it is my theory that the Cumberland River may have had a backup from the Ohio River. The Ohio River drains into the Mississippi River. Ninety-eight miles of the Mississippi, from the Gulf of Mexico through Louisiana, were blocked to keep the river from becoming contaminated with oil.

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. About 2,320 miles (3,730 km) long, the river originates at Lake Itasca, Minnesota and flows slowly southwards in sweeping meanders, terminating 95 river miles below New Orleans, Louisiana where it begins to flow to the Gulf of Mexico. Along with its major tributary, the Missouri River, the river drains all or parts of 31 U.S. states stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the Canada-U.S. border on the north, including most of the Great Plains, and is the fourth longest river in the world and the tenth most powerful river in the world.

If a natural process can change the course of the Mississippi River, perhaps an extreme process caused by drilling into the ocean floor could also affect the Mississippi River--but much more rapidly---such as ocean waters backing into the Mississippi River from the holes drilled in the ocean floor.

Well, a natural process does occur-it's called delta switching as it causes the lower Mississippi River to shift its final course to the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico every thousand years or so. This occurs because the deposits of silt and sediment begin to clog its channel, raising the river's level and causing it to eventually find a steeper, more direct route to the Gulf of Mexico. The abandoned distributaries diminish in volume and form what are known as bayous. This process has, over the past 5,000 years, caused the coastline of south Louisiana to advance toward the Gulf from 15 to 50 miles (25-80 km). The currently active delta lobe is called the Birdfoot Delta, after its shape, or the Balize Delta, after La Balize, Louisiana, the first French settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi.

Note the maps of the Mississippi River Basin obtained from wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River

Reaction of Methane in the Ocean and Atmosphere

Many scientists believe that methane gas released into the atmosphere increases global warming. Global warming causes extreme weather conditions, such as hurricanes, tsunamis, torrential rains, etc.

There was 3000 times more natural gas coming out of the leak than oil. All of the gas initially stayed in the water because the ocean has the capacity to hold large quantities of methane in solution. It is like ice cubes floating on the water. When methane breaks down it depletes oxygen in the water. Then, when it continues to break down it produces hydrogen sulfate. The damage of the massive amounts of Gas being released into the gulf is worse than the oil.

Theory Based on Research

A substantial amount of methane released into the Gulf of Mexico from the ocean floor oil gusher, could affect the weather. When methane gas is released into water, the water bonds around it forming ice crystals such as those that clogged the hardware intended to cap the leak. As the warm Gulf winds blow across these ice crystals in the ocean, rain begins to form. As the air continues to move north and east, it carries torrential rains with it-like those experienced in Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.

Eventually, as the ocean floor holes fill with ocean water, the pressure will become enormous, causing shifting underneath the ocean floor. The water will seek somewhere to go. This could eventually cause land upheavals and/or water backing up into the Mississippi and its tributaries. The result will be flooding, earthquakes, possibly even tsunamis.

How the Oceans of the World are Connected

If you believe that you don't have to worry about this disaster as you don't live in the United States, think again. Besides being connected to the Mississippi, the Gulf of Mexico is connected to all other oceans of the world through the Atlantic Ocean.

The World Ocean, or global ocean is the interconnected system of the earth's oceanic (or marine) waters, and comprises the bulk of the hydrosphere, covering almost 71% of the Earth's surface. The unity and continuity of the World Ocean, with relatively free interchange among its parts, is of fundamental importance to oceanography. It is divided into a number of principal oceanic areas that are delimited by the continents and various oceanographic features.

Divisions of the World Ocean

For emphasis, the Atlantic Ocean is italicized everywhere it occurs in these divisions.

The Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean (sometimes considered a sea of the Atlantic), Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Southern Ocean (sometimes reckoned instead as just the southern portions of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans). In turn, oceanic waters are interspersed by many smaller seas, gulfs, and bays.

The contemporary concept of the World Ocean was coined by the Russian oceanographer Yuly Shokalsky in the early 20th century to describe what is basically a solitary, continuous ocean that covers and encircles most of the earth.

While continuous, the World Ocean can be visualized as being centered on the Southern Ocean. The Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans can be seen as bays or lobes extending northward from the Southern Ocean.

Further north, the Atlantic opens into the Arctic Ocean, which is connected to the Pacific by the Bering Strait:

• The Pacific Ocean, the largest of the oceans, also reaches northward from the Southern Ocean to the Arctic Ocean. It spans the gap between Australia,Asia, the Americas and Oceania. The Pacific Ocean meets the Atlantic south of South America at Cape Horn.
• The Atlantic Ocean, the second largest, extends from the Southern Ocean between South America, Africa, North America and Europe, to the Arctic Ocean. The Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean south of Africa at Cape Agulhas.
• The Indian Ocean extends northward from the Southern Ocean to India, between Africa and Australia. The Indian Ocean joins the Pacific Ocean to the east, near Australia.
• The Southern Ocean is the ocean surrounding Antarctica, dominated by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, generally the ocean south of sixty degrees south latitude. The Southern Ocean is partially covered in sea ice, the extent of which varies according to the season. The Southern Ocean is the second smallest of the five named oceans.
• The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the five. It joins the Atlantic near Greenland and Iceland, and joins the Pacific at the Bering Strait. It overlies the North Pole, touching North America in the Western hemisphere and Scandinavia and Asia in the Eastern hemisphere. The Arctic Ocean is partially covered in sea ice, the extent of which varies according to the season. Some authorities do not consider the Arctic Ocean a bona fide ocean, because it is largely surrounded by land with only limited exchange of water with the other oceans. Consequently, it is considered by some to be a sea of the Atlantic, referred to as the Arctic Mediterranean Sea or Arctic Sea.

The approximate shape of the World Ocean can for most purposes be treated as constant, although in fact it is not: continental drift continually changes its structure.

Lessons Learned

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the lesson first, the test afterwards--before anyone drills into the ocean floor, or any other type of activity that could harm the environment, they need to know what they are doing, have safeguards, and back-up plans.

NASA reported that images from space showed the oil slick looking like a U. Later it morphed into the image of a swan. Perhaps God is speaking to us? U are responsible for this. This is your Swan song. (Oil Spill-NASA)

Sources:

American Meterological Society, http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0434(2000)015<0029:QPFFTT>2.0.CO;2

Brantley Hargrove, Why does the Nashville area flood?, Nashville City Paper, http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/2010-flood/why-does-nashville-area-flood

Contamination area and blockages of Mississippi River images, NOAA.gov

Denise Brehm, Methane gas likely spewing into the oceans through vents in sea floor, September 2, 2009, Civil & Environmental Engineering, http://cee.mit.edu/news/releases/2009/methanehydrates

Deep Water Horizon Rig image, wikipedia/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

John Timmer, Frozen methane, from the gulf oil spill to climate change, Gas Leak 3000 Times Worse Than Oil - Updated Math by innereye Sun May 16, 2010 at 09:00:12 AM PDT, http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/05/frozen-methane-from-the-gulf-oil-spill-to-climate-change.ars

Mississippi River, wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River

Oil Spill, http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/oilspill/index.html

The Cumberland River, http://www.answers.com/topic/cumberland-river

World Ocean, wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Oceanhttp://deltas.usgs.gov/images/mississippi_oilspill.jpg