Monday, August 02, 2010

BP Oil Spill Compared to Niagara Falls


Scientists said today that about 5 million barrels of oil have leaked out the faulty BP well in the Gulf of Mexico, making it the largest accidental oil release in history.

That's only about 800,000 m3 (or a cube about 93 m on a side), but here's a more impressive way of looking at it: it's the same volume of water that goes over Niagara Falls in 7 min 14 seconds.

3 comments:

William M. Connolley said...

See? You really should keep blogging. Thanks for this and the last!

bob said...

that's actually less than I thought. Maybe the problem is I cannot conceive the amount of water going over the falls as I've never visited it.

Unknown said...

Another way of looking at it:

800,000 m3 = 320 Olympic-size swimming pools

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic-size_swimming_pool