Likely linked to the Macondo well

As you read this think of the late Matt Simmons who saw this coming

Comments from Mike Ruppert: People who followed our coverage of the Macondo event (Deepwater Horizon) at Collapsenet will recall how thoroughly it was documented that the entire seabed for many square miles had been rendered porous and extremely unstable. Before his untimely death, the late Matthew Simmons -- once the world's largest energy investment banker -- so loudly and clearly told us that the "Gulf was dead". He also warned of exactly this event. All of BP's fixes were purely cosmetic. The leak was never plugged. And, as Matt predicted, there would come a time when that entire areas of seabed just caved in or gave way and let all the oil and gas out at once.

And when that happened, he said, no human effort of any kind could mitigate the consequences.

Mother Earth bats last and more prophecies are being fulfilled. Is this starting to sink in? ...."

Mysterious tremors 45 miles from sinkhole

Examiner ,

5 October, 2012

Parts of Louisiana's Gulf coast Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes, approximately 45 miles from the giant Assumption Parish sinkhole in the Bayou Corne area of a breached Napoleonville Salt Dome cavern, shook Wednesday, causing offices of officials to be flooded with telephone calls from frightened residents.

A little before 2 p.m. Wednesday, reports began flooding officials' offices about tremors with loud thunder noises some 45 miles from Louisiana's giant sinkhole and about 140 miles northwest of the BP-wrecked Macondo Prospect oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Even residents in brick houses were rattled by the quakes.


Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office and Office of Emergency Preparedness received reports, “but nobody has been able to narrow down a cause,” reports the Daily Comet.


“Of course the sinkhole comes to mind,” said Raceland resident Lauren Matherne, who was sitting in her home with she felt the jolt.


Assumption Parish community of Bayou Corne residents reported earthquakes two months before the emergence of the 4-acre sinkhole in swampland near the community this summer.


Dr. Stephen Horton, a seismologist contracted by the Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Center (USGS), told reporter Deborah Dupré in mid-August that for two months, there had been thousands of quakes in the area.


Within twenty-four hours of the quakes ending, the sinkhole emerged, Horton said.


As Horton had then explained to Dupré, Paul Caruso, with the Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Center, said not many seismic monitors are in south Louisiana because such activity in the area is rare and that "there would have to be several such monitors within 50 miles of such a weak quake’s epicenter to detect it," as reported by the Daily Comet.


Pierre Part residents have recently reported feeling tremors and hearing loud noises again. Horton told this reporter Tuesday that, although USGS has no recording of those recent quakes, it has no monitors in Pierre Part.


Methane bubbles have been emerging in the sinkhole vicinity for four months. There are now seventeen bubble sites percolating in the sinkhole vicinity. As far as 80 miles west, at Lake Peigneur, gas bubbling has also increased. A resident who has lived and fished in the sinkhole area for decades has reported that the entire 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Salt Dome area has been sinking.


Some scientists believe the sinkhole was caused when a subterranean brine cavern in the 1-mile by 3-mile Napoleonville Salt Dome collapsed. The breached cavern floor, storing radioactive materials and brine, is over 1,000 feet underground. The bottom is now leaking hydrocarbons into the cavern. Other scientists say some other powerful force has caused the cavern to breach, the seismic activity and escaping gas.


"Lafourche and Terrebonne have similar brine caverns but Chris Boudreaux, Lafourche’s director of Emergency Operations said there is no reason to believe there are any similarities to the Bayou Corne situation," the Daily Comet reports.

“It’s just strange. Of course, we are all concerned about what caused it,” Matherne said.


Lockport resident Bryan Comardelle had just sat down to watch television when he felt the rumble.


“It was just a sudden vibration,” Comardelle said. “I live in a brick house, and it even made it shake.”


Most reports are fairly uniform, according to officials: one to four tremors reported in southern parts of the parishes all the way up into Raceland and Houma.
Raceland and Houma are approximately 45 miles south of the sinkhole, just north of the Gulf of Mexico.


"Earthquakes occur within areas of weakness in the earth's crust, revealed by fractures and faults," according to Donald A. Stevenson and Richard P. McCulloh of Louisiana Geological Survey.


The new south Louisiana tremors have occurred along with more evidence that the BP Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe, that began in April 2010, is still leaking oil and possibly linked to fissures and sea cracks in the wrecked Macondo Well where the company was drilling from the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded.


The initial report about the new oil from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration said it was establishing a hotline "for new reports of sheen of unknown origin in and near lease block Mississippi Canyon 252. This incident is likely related to reports in August 2011." (See incident #8345, Aug. 2011)


NOAA reported, "Although the source of these sheens may be the wrecked BP Macondo Well, this relationship has not been established at this time." That NOAA report is no longer on the web site as of Tuesday night, as environmental attorney Stuart Smith verified Tuesday. Instead, NOAA website visitors now see:
"Incident #8510 does not exist, has been deleted, or you do not have permission to view it."


Wednesday, some people in the Gulf parishes reported hearing a loud noise similar to thunder accompanying the quakes.


“My wife described it as sounding like a garbage truck had just dropped a dumpster,” Comardelle said.


“It was clear outside, and then we felt more tremors,” Comardelle said, having joined neighbors outside looking for signs of what was causing the jolts.


Rafael Abreu, a geophysicist with USGS, said the earth’s crust is riddled with fault lines, and people often report hearing such a loud noise when they are near the epicenter of a quake.


Boudreaux said that the National Guard reported having no fly-overs that could have caused sonic booms. He called multiple oil-field facilities, but none had an explanation.


“As far as right now, we haven’t found anything,” Boudreaux said. “I don’t think we will.”


Horton had told Dupré in August that fossil fuel industries’ environmental modifications (ENMODs) causing the gas bubbles, the giant sinkhole and the thousands of quakes resulting in today's State of Emergency and mandatory evacuation in Assumption Parish, "is a real possibility.”


Horton's work at the University of Memphis involves monitoring the New Madrid fault line and the Louisiana disaster for the USGS.


Smith stated Tuesday about the latest oil incident of BP's Gulf catastrophic event and the possible fissures or sea cracks, "This situation is exactly what we’d warned about in 2010 — that the rig disaster, caused by BP’s reckless and foolish actions, would continue to wreak havoc on the Gulf environment for years to come."


Deborah Dupré is author of the forthcoming book, "Vampire of Macondo," about the 2010 BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.