In the decade since the Deepwater Horizons oil spill, scientists have been working hard to understand the intricacies of how liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons behave underwater. The high pressures, low Keep reading
Tag: oil spill
Oil Drops and Filter Feeders
Natural oils provide critical nutrients to filter feeders like zooplankton and barnacles. These creatures capture oil droplets on bristle-like appendages such as cilia and setae. But this droplet-catching turns into Keep reading
Tornadoes, Fire, and Ice
It’s time for another look at breaking fluid dynamics research with the latest FYFD/JFM video! This time around, we tackle some geophysical fluid dynamics, like listening to the sounds newborn Keep reading
Bees, Squid, and Oil Plumes
It’s time for another JFM/FYFD collab video! April’s video brings us a taste of spring with research on how bees carry pollen, squid-inspired robotics, and understanding the physics of underwater Keep reading
The Blue Whirl
We wrote earlier this year about the discovery of a new type of fire whirl – the blue whirl – but now the authors have published video of the blue whirl Keep reading
The Blue Whirl
Researchers studying the use of fire whirls to burn off oil spills have discovered a new type of fire whirl – the blue whirl. Their results are currently reported in Keep reading
Plume Stratification
Clean-up of accidents like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill can be complicated by what goes on beneath the ocean surface. Variations in temperature and salinity in seawater create stratification, stacked Keep reading
Underwater Plumes
During 2010’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill there were reports of underwater plumes of oil escaping collection. This video demonstrates how such a plume can form. There are two clips shown Keep reading
Dr. Seussian Mystery Fluid Could Have Saved Top Kill
Dr. Seussian Mystery Fluid Could Have Saved Top Kill Wired article about using non-Newtonian fluids to plug leaking oil wells as we featured previously.
Plugging an Oil Leak
Recent research indicates that adding cornstarch to drilling mud increases the likelihood that a “top-kill” procedure will plug a leaking oil well. Adding cornstarch to water (or mud) turns it Keep reading