Gulf spill and its possible consequences

[Mike]

In the cold murky depths won't some of those 'tanes dissolve into water? just as CO2 dissolves into water better if it is cold and under pressure?

[Dame]

Please review for tense.

[offdalip]

Chemically,
gases dissolve more in water the colder and higher the pressure,

liquids on the other hand dissolve better in water the hotter it is

[opsec]

So would it be safe to assume that the floor of the Gulf of Mexico has been paved by a layer of undissolved crude oil liquids?

[offdalip]

yep, probably the benzenoids, naphthalenes, anthracenes and other cyclic really nasty carcinogenic and densest hydrocarbons.

the lighter heptanes pentanes etc etc are probably stuck in the middle or trying to make their way up. they are much much less toxic.

for instance, methane, the lightest of the bunch is completely non toxic. though you can still asphyxiate on it in high enough concentrations.

I think somebody did a calculation that the entire 100,000,000 barrel??? spill if it covered an area the  size of WA state it would only be 1mm thick???

I haven't bothered to do the actual calc to verify this

[offdalip]

just for fun,

I calculated an area the size of WA state covered entirely by 1 millimeter of oil would take

813 millions of barrels of oil or 41 billions of gallons of oil

[Beeherder]

and if you covered the state of WA in 1 mm of crude oil would any life survive?