BP Negligence - Anatomy of a Disaster. Tsunami Dager Too?

The chart and explanation set out below comes by way of Halliburton and the Times-Picayune. NOTE: Click on the image for a larger version. The pictorial makes a strong case that BP's efforts to cut corners (and lower costs) played a major role in the disaster still unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. If the failure to seal the casing at the bottom occurred to save money - as many now speculate - it would seem that BP is guilty of criminal negligence and manslaughter in respect to the eleven individuals who died in the drill rig explosion.

As if the death of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico isn't disaster enough, there seems to be growing concern that a tsunami could be triggered in the Gulf if the methane trapped beneath the well explodes. A new post at Huffington Post looks at this potential catastrophic disaster. Here are a few highlights:
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Older documents indicate that the subterranean geological formation below the "Macondo" well in the Gulf of Mexico may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit. It has been a well known fact that the methane in that oil deposit was problematic. As a result, there was a much higher risk of a blow out.
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The crude oil from the "Macondo" well, which is damaging the Gulf of Mexico, contains around 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits. Scientists warn that gases such as methane, hydrogen sulfide and benzene, along with oil, are now depleting the oxygen in the water and are beginning to suffocate marine life creating vast "dead zones". As small microbes living in the sea feed on oil and natural gas, they consume large amounts of oxygen which they require in order to digest food, ie, convert it into energy. There is an environmental ripple effect: when oxygen levels decrease, the breakdown of oil can't advance any further.
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A methane bubble this large -- if able to escape from under the ocean floor through fissures, cracks and fault areas -- is likely to cause a gas explosion. With the emerging evidence of fissures, the tacit fear now is this: the methane bubble may rupture the seabed and may then erupt with an explosion within the Gulf of Mexico waters. The bubble is likely to explode upwards propelled by more than 50,000 psi of pressure, bursting through the cracks and fissures of the sea floor, fracturing and rupturing miles of ocean bottom with a single extreme explosion.
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If the toxic gas bubble explodes, it might simultaneously set off a tsunami travelling at a high speed of hundreds of miles per hour. Florida might be most exposed to the fury of a tsunami wave. The entire Gulf coastline would be vulnerable, if the tsunami is manifest. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and southern region of Georgia might experience the effects of the tsunami according to some sources.
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While I certainly hope and pray that no enormous tsunami triggering methane explosion occurs, the irony would be that the majority of states facing destruction on their shores would be the same states that for the most part blindly supported the Bush/Cheney regime and its anti-regulation mantra. If this should happen, Karma would certainly be a bitch indeed.