[HN Gopher] Lake Peigneur: The Swirling Vortex of Doom (2005)
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Lake Peigneur: The Swirling Vortex of Doom (2005)
Author : belatw
Score : 130 points
Date : 2021-05-24 09:01 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.damninteresting.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.damninteresting.com)
| mannykannot wrote:
| The Mine Safety and Health Administration produced a report [1]
| with an inconclusive "Possible Causes" section. One thing I
| noticed there is that "the plotted location of the drill hole
| fell just within a mined-out section." I wonder if the drillers
| were using a map showing only the active galleries, though I
| would imagine that would have been mentioned if it came to light.
|
| There are detailed maps and drawings of the mine works in this
| report. Also, there is a diagram [2] to be found in several
| places, apparently from Keller & Blodgett "Natural Hazards"
| (Prentice Hall.)
|
| [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=EbjC-q99VHAC
|
| [2]
| http://www.thelivingmoon.com/47john_lear/04images/Sink_holes...
| kodah wrote:
| If you watch the video linked in another comment, one of the
| folks interviewed says they used a form of triangulation that
| displaced them 400 meters, but all that evidence is gone.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| I'm dumbfounded that Texaco thought drilling there was a good
| idea.
| mannykannot wrote:
| And now:
|
| _Since 1994, AGL Resources has used Lake Peigneur 's
| underlying salt dome as a storage and hub facility for
| pressurized natural gas. There was concern from local residents
| in 2009 over the safety of storing the gas under the lake and
| nearby drilling operations._
|
| - Wikipedia.
|
| I can understand the residents' concerns!
| beerandt wrote:
| The over-mining and removal of the salt is what leads to
| potential geological instability, not using the already
| excavated space for gas storage.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Well, as the incident here was caused by nearby drilling,
| an attitude of "once bitten, twice shy" is understandable.
|
| I am also curious about what happens to the water in the
| mine. Did the hole, big enough to swallow the drilling rig
| and several barges, seal up, and were the workings then
| pumped dry? If the water is still there, presumably it
| would become a saturated solution, but I am wondering if
| that could still erode the salt, on account of continual
| exchange of ions between the solution and crystals of salt?
| Or would the water be entirely absorbed into the salt
| crysyals, given that NaCl and other salts are hygroscopic?
| If I were a local resident, I would have more than a mild
| curiosity in these questions.
| beerandt wrote:
| Well the same mine, on the same 1300 ft level, had a
| water intrusion related collapse about 10 years prior
| that killed 4 miners. Without any oil drilling going on
| in the area.
|
| Part of the engineering involved in the design of these
| mines is based on leaving enough salt, such that X" of
| salt on the surfaces will be dissolved by the mine
| eventually being flooded, either intentionally or not.
| After that surface-salt is dissolved (and the water
| approaches being supersaturated brine), enough solid
| structural salt needs to be left to support all of the
| overburden, with some additional factor of safety.
|
| Worst case would be some sort of underground fresh water
| river flowing through indefinitely.
|
| But mine design incorporates ways to naturally seal off
| flooded areas, such that even if they are left "open" to
| some connection of water, the supersaturated brine will
| effectively plug that hole. Usually as simple as changing
| elevations so that a brine-water interface forms that
| blocks any natural flow.
|
| And once water is supersaturated with salt, salt is no
| longer "hygroscopic", in the sense that it's no longer
| water, but brine.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| It is a weird industry man, ceos of the big companies often
| talk about God and morals a lot but their actual behavior is
| reckless and greedy. See the decades of knowingly lying about
| climate change as well. Source: I worked for a big oil company
| taneq wrote:
| I don't want anyone who talks about God a lot running a big
| company, I want someone who takes responsibility for outcomes
| themselves.
| vkou wrote:
| 1. What you want doesn't really matter, since you and I
| don't get to vote on company directorships.
|
| 2. You would want God on your side[1], if you're going to
| operate a controversial[2] business in his country.
|
| [1] Or at least claim loudly and frequently that he's on
| your side.
|
| [2] Resource extraction, even in resource-economy regions
| is always controversial, because of its impact on
| neighbouring properties. And when your business is
| controversial, having the clergy on your side can't hurt.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Drilling near mines of all sorts happens regularly without
| incident. This was a spectacular failure, but you don't hear
| about the routine successes.
| beerandt wrote:
| Even this failure was a success, in that the safety
| regulations worked well enough that no one was killed or
| injured.
| adolph wrote:
| _The development of salt domes can deform rock units into traps
| that hold oil and natural gas._
|
| https://geology.com/stories/13/salt-domes/
|
| _Diamond Crystal sued the state because Louisiana owns and
| leases land on which the drilling took place. The company
| claimed the state was responsible for keeping the mining and
| drilling operations safely separated, Guste said._
|
| https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/07/07/Settlement-reached-i...
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| I found this picture[1] via
| http://www.sketchyscience.com/2015/05/sinkholes-natures-most...
|
| which shows visually what actually happened with the drill.
|
| --
|
| [1]
| http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--Q5XY2Gkwns/VVK8dT2pPSI/AAAAAAAACG...
| moioci wrote:
| There is some amazing video on youtube:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_iZr2-Coqc
| smcl wrote:
| If you want a bit more of an in-depth, audio depiction of this
| incident then check out the Well There's Your Problem episode on
| it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgKU0zu6KB8
|
| It's a podcast about engineering disasters (with slides) that I
| enjoy and share whenever I can :D
| q_andrew wrote:
| This is my go-to podcast for background noise at work. I
| recommend their episode on Gulf State vanity projects, it's my
| favorite one (it is also quite long).
| smcl wrote:
| They've joked a couple of times that Seamus Malekafzali won't
| come back after the length of that one :D
|
| Update: oof yeah I just checked again now - 3 hours 4 minutes
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW6lg-7L7yk).
| Gravityloss wrote:
| When your company consists of a bunch of interlinked services...
| cyberfart wrote:
| Today I Found Out has an episode on it too [1].
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/CPERnfB-q3o
| DamnInteresting wrote:
| Author of the original Damn Interesting article here. This
| Today I Found Out (TIFO) video is problematic, because the host
| of TIFO (Simon Whistler) used to be part of Damn Interesting,
| he was the narrator for our audiobook and some of our early
| podcast episodes. Our Lake Peigneur article, the one this HN
| thread is based upon, was one that he recorded for us.
|
| Simon joined TIFO without informing us, while still working as
| our narrator. And TIFO had long been poaching our articles,
| lazily rewriting our work and calling it their own. So you can
| imagine my dismay when I found out that our paid narrator was
| also being paid by a competing website to read our slightly
| reworked content.
|
| This Lake Peigneur video is a particularly egregious example.
| Their script is extremely similar to our original article in
| structure and phrasing. That alone would be bad enough, but for
| the video's host to be a former member of Damn Interesting
| makes it feel really awful.
|
| This isn't the first of our articles they have reworked into a
| video without our permission, and I doubt it will be the last.
| I'm not claiming they are breaking any laws, but what they are
| doing is gross and parasitic.
| suethemthen wrote:
| If you have a real, actionable, complaint against these
| people you should take action through the legal system.
| Complaining in a random comment on Hacker News where the
| accused isn't present to defend themselves comes off as
| incredibly petty, and hearsay at that, because there's no way
| to verify your complaints.
|
| Why do companies, like you, think HN is an appropriate venue
| for airing these kinds of grievances? If you think he stole
| your IP, sue him. If you don't, but you still feel wronged,
| you need to write better licensing and employment contracts.
|
| You know what whining on HN does? It makes potential readers
| like me remember that you run a petty organization that seeks
| extralegal justice when it fails to protect its IP.
|
| You're equally pathetic. That's all I'm going to remember
| when I see your brand from now on. Great comment.
| Severian wrote:
| History channel video about it. Shares some other details and
| first hand accounts.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_iZr2-Coqc
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(page generated 2021-05-24 23:02 UTC)