Gas Drilling

Gas drilling on the Indonesian of java has 1 a “mud volcano” that has killed 13 people and may render four square miles (ten square kilometers) of countryside uninhabitable for years. In a report released on January 23, a team of British researchers says the deadly 2 began when an exploratory gas well punched through a layer of rock 9300 feet (2800 meters) below the surface, 3 hot, high pressure water to 4. The water 5 mud to the surface, where it has 6 across a region 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) in 7 in the eight months since the eruption began. The mud volcano is similar to a gusher or blowout, which occur in oil drilling when oil or gas squirt to the surface, team says. This upwelling, however, spews out a volume of mud equivalent to a dozen Olympic swimming pools each day. Although the eruption isn't as violent as a 8 volcano, more than a dozen people died when a natural gas pipeline ruptured. The research team, who published their findings in the February issue of GSA Today, also estimates that the volcano, called Luis, will leave more than 11,000 people permanently displaced.