Re: How much oil is there in the pocket under the gulf?

Ryan, There's a map here with the oil spill extent. I tried to find the link to the official data, but the government website doesn't work for me.

The closer the oil is to the shore, the more damage it will do. So the critical question is whether the currents will move the oil out into the open ocean, or whether it will smear along the Florida coastline. If it travels around the tip of Florida, it might just head into the open ocean where it would do relatively little damage, but it also might cause problems on the East Coast or in Cuba.

Estimating just how much oil is out there is a tricky problem. Basically, the problem has 3 pieces:

• Spatial area of the oil "pocket";
• Depth (thickness) of the oil "pocket";
• concentration of oil in the "pocket";

Unfortunately, what we do know for sure is bad enough: there is a lot of oil out there, and it is doing a lot of damage when it gets near shore. Every new report raises the total amount of oil, and of course it is still leaking. Hopefully the leak will be stopped soon, and the oil that is currently in the Gulf will head out into the open ocean.

Thanks for your questions!

--Edward H.