The Gulf Oil Eruption of 2010, Day (n + 1)

 
Some of the best political reporting in America over the past 40 years has appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine, for some reason. Tim Dickinson takes the story of our oily Gulf for a spin in the latest issue, online here.

Here's a marvelous representation of Earth in cross-section in 5,000 foot increments, from more than 35,000 feet above sea level to more than 35,000 feet below. Scroll down toward sea level, and on the right you can follow a red line representing the descent of the drilling done from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. It wasn't plain to me until I saw this graphic that the site of the eruption of oil, at about 5,000 feet, is actually 13,000 feet above the deepest point reached by the drillers,the oil shooting out of that broken section of pipe on the sea floor carried under immense pressure from way, way down below.