Hoagland's Gulf of Mexico FAIL

At this point, a month after Richard Hoagland first demanded the mud logs from Deepwater Horizon, his campaign has to be seen as not merely an EPIC FAIL but a bunch of alarmist, mendacious nonsense. If the mud logs have been provided at all, it is in classified form to the Congress, certainly not to Hoagland and certainly not as a result of his daft self-promoting campaign.

Hoagland screamed that the "methane bubble" was at a lethal pressure of 100,000 psi. Last night Adm. Thad Allen said on TV network news that if the new capping procedure (Top Hat #10) was successful the pressure would rise to 8-9,000 psi. Online sources (e.g. The Guardian newspaper) published a picture of the pressure gauge that would test this. Hard to know how a pressure gauge that pegs at 10,000 could measure 100,000, isn't it?


Who are you going to believe — an admiral with access to all information sources public, private and classified, or an out of work former museum curator who, when asked what his sources are, replies "inside information"?

Hoagland has made much of the city-killing potential of this so-called 100,000 psi methane bubble, advising that the whole of Alabama, Georgia and Florida are at risk from the colossal explosion and fast-moving tsunami that are imminent. Scientists who are qualified to assess this claim have said it is nonsense. Who are you going to believe — UCSB and Woods Hole geologists, or a totally unqualified radio entertainer who has been caught peddling alarmist lies on many previous occasions?

Hoagland claimed that the Deepwater Horizon blowout was just a sideshow — that the real threat was a gash in the Earth's crust ten miles away spewing even more oil. The truth is that the NOAA research vessel Thomas Jefferson, on a mission to detect underwater oil plumes from Deepwater Horizon, did note a fault in the vicinity but not that it was gushing oil. In all probability it is not related to Deepwater Horizon at all. The primary source of this alarmist rumor is Matthew Simmons, who has made a number of inaccurate statements about the Gulf of Mexico.

The radio show Coast to Coast AM has, on two occasions, provided a public platform for this arrant rubbish. In the circumstances of what is obviously a public emergency of unprecedented seriousness, do they think this is responsible broadcasting?