The Blob Is Real!

[RWB]

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_3529716

:wtf:

[GHoosdum]

That sounds really disgusting.

It's probably just a load of crap...

;)

[muddocktor]

Wild stuff!

I wonder if they lost mud returns on that drilling rig that was nearby. Depending on how far down the well is and the geothermal properties of the area (which is probably pretty darn high with all the fault lines in LA), they could very well be seeing something coming from that rig's wellbore. Drilling mud can get damn hot in deep wells around here.

[GHoosdum]

I have no idea what you just said, but it sounds reasonable enough.

[csimon]

Wild stuff!

I wonder if they lost mud returns on that drilling rig that was nearby. Depending on how far down the well is and the geothermal properties of the area (which is probably pretty darn high with all the fault lines in LA), they could very well be seeing something coming from that rig's wellbore. Drilling mud can get damn hot in deep wells around here.

Maybe we should be drilling downtown LA?

[MachineGunKelly]

Muddocktor isn't far off the mark here.
That's not that far from the famous "La Brea Tar pits" in Los Angeles. There is a museum with dinosaurs recovered from them with active, bubbling tar pits still on the site.
The last time I was there with my family (20 years ago) some organic gas had seeped into the sewers there and ignited, causing several steel manhole covers to blow up into the air right after we left the vicinity.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that they had disturbed a long dormant fissure due to the drilling in the near future. As Mud had indicated, the entire region is extremely volatile. I know, I used to live there. Too many earthquakes for me bro's!

[csimon]

MGK where the hell did you come from??? ROFLMAO

Honest to God and all creation I was just thinking about you on my way to work this morning ...I was trying to think of how long it's been.

So what have you been up to guy?

[GHoosdum]

Jeez, MGK, welcome home!

[muddocktor]

Nice seeing you back, MGK. :thumbsup:

That article says that there are drilling operations going on a few blocks from where this is happening, so it could very well be possible that it is drilling fluid coming from that wellbore. Drilling fluid, or mud as it is commonly called, is generally a brownish colored fluid consisting of water, various mined products and also contains various products derived from tree bark to defloculate (or thin) the fluid. These deflocculants also help give it a brown, chocolate milk color too, besides the barite (barium sulfate, which is also used in women's makeup among other things) and bentonite (sodium Montmorillonite, also used in makeup). Since the area around LA is so geophysically active, it very well could be that the wellbore came into contact with a fissure that also connects to the drainage system and the since the fluid is contained in tanks that are above the level of the streets, it will return to the point of least resistance, which evidently is the drainage or sewerage system. If they are using a water based drilling fluid (which it must be, since they said in the article that it wasn't flammable or toxic), it could very well be seeping through the fissure and dissolving various minerals and it in the ground and helping make the goo coming out of the ground harder to figure out too. Also, the temperatures encountered in some wellbores around here get damn hot, in the order of greater than 500 F and it's not uncommon for fluid temps to be greater than 140 F even on the surface in deep wells (>20,000 feet or 6100 meters for you metric types).

[csimon]

what can they do about it ...stop drilling?
Kinda reminds me of the Lake Penier (sp?) incident ...run amuk!

[muddocktor]

They could probably run sand cement ome casing in the wellbore and seal off the fractured area. Once they would have casing run and cemented (casing is steel pipe that is threaded on the ends, generally large to fairly large in diameter) in place, the fracured formation would effectively be isolated from the wellbore and no further leakage would occur unless a deeper formation were also fractured and have communication with the upper formations too, which isn't impossible in a geophysically active area such as LA.

Lake Peigneur was a bit different situation. Texaco was drilling a well out in the middle of the lake and somehow there was some miscommuncation between them and the company that was running the salt mine at Jefferson Island and Texaco didn't realize that there was a mine shaft below the rig's location. So basically Texaco drilled directly into the mine shaft and then everything started washing out once the shaft was breached until a hole opened up large enough to swallow the rig, around a dozen barges, the lake itself and also part of Jefferson Island. Water ran backwards from Vermilion Bay for 2-3 days until the mine totally filled with water and then Lake Peigneur filled back up again(It was a big damn salt mine). They said it looked like flushing a giant toilet bowl with a whirlpool and all.;D ;D The part that makes it funny is that nobody got a scratch either in the mine or on the rig or boats that were servicing the rig.

If anyone is interested in reading about this, I googled up an article here: http://members.tripod.com/~earthdude1/texaco/texaco.html

[csimon]

I remember ...my boss at the time was flying over the lake on his way to the port of iberia when it was happening. When he came back and told us what he saw we all thought he'd been drinking again! He said the lake looked like a giant toilet bowl with barges and all kinds of things getting sucked in.

I cast a 100' line down there once and it never hit bottom ...it must be really deep!