In 2004, hurricane Ivan roared ashore in Alabama as a powerful category-4 storm. Sustained winds of 112 whipped up waves to nearly 66 feet high, and residents along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico braced for a direct impact.
Beneath the ocean, six large sensors (pictured, left) were moored to the seafloor in 200-300 feet of water, listening and recording as the usually quiet currents were stirred into a frenzy. Sediments were scoured, mudslides triggered -- it was the first time energy from hurricanes was observed penetrating so deep into the sea.
With some 31,000 miles of oil pipeline snaking across the bottom of the hurricane-prone Gulf, this is not good news.
The findings suggest that hurricanes could scour out large chunks of sediment from the sea bottom, and that resultant mudslides could damage oil pipelines. A team of researchers from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi will publish their results next month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Even more concerning, the researchers write:
Damage to pipelines, which often is difficult to detect unless the damage is catastrophic, can be more costly to repair than damage to the superstructures on platforms. Major oil leaks from damaged pipelines could have irreversible impacts to the ocean environment.
Given the current oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the second sentence seems a little obvious. But it brings up a worrying scenario -- hurricanes routinely rake the Gulf, and concerns over damage to oil and gas infrastructure typically focus on the sea surface. What if there are multiple leaks slowly oozing into the Gulf, undetected, at this very moment?
Admittedly, this is speculation. But at the very least we can probably agree that based on these new findings, it might be a good idea to inspect the pipes and make sure everything's in order, right?
Only, who's going to send divers or submersible robots down to check out enough pipeline to cross the continental United States ten times over -- oil companies like BP and the many subcontracting companies that support them? They've already kind of got their hands full with the one spill...not sure they'll be too excited about looking for more spills.
Image: Naval Research Laboratory
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Tags: Hurricanes, Natural Disasters, Weather
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