skunked on Bayou Corne (attn: dial up.... 2min. video)

[jdupre']

I got skunked on Bayou Corne this morning. The water was high and muddy and I didn't get even a bump. I went exploring down a dead end canal that I hadn't been in. It is lined with some of the 100 or so camps and houses that have been vacated because of the nearby sinkhole.

Click on pic for video



On a pretty spring morning, not a sound...........no lawnmowers , trimmers, radios or air condtioners could be heard. Kind of eerie.

Coming back, I spotted this in someone's yard. I doubt seriously if it was lawn art. I'm sure it has something to do with monitoring or collecting gas from the sinkhole. I did see quite a few bubbles coming up in the bayou.





Joey

 

[Kayak Jack]

Thanks, Joey. Can you, for us uninformed amongst the congregation, please review some of the geology and history of this sinkhole. (Not the sinkhole in Washington D.C. - yours.) :|
Thanks, this stuff is interesting.

 

[jdupre']

Quick and dirty explanation. The salt dome is a round top ,solid pillar of salt that was pushed up from thousands of feet below the surface to within a couple of thousand feet from the surface. This displaced the rock formations and left fault lines that captured oil and natural gas around the perimeter of the 1.5 mile diameter dome. Companies drill down into the salt and pump in water and the resulting brine water is sold for chemical production. When a well gets too big to mine for salt, commercial gases are pumped into the well for storage.

Evidently, one of the well carverns on the very edge of the dome broke through into the surronding rock formations and allowed the contents of the cavern to escape into the water aquifer. This is the gas coming up to the surface in the community of Bayou Corne. When the cavern wall broke, it started the collapse of the land surrounding the well head.

It's hard getting the REAL facts because the company that owns the well is the one doing, or paying for , the investigation.

All this is happening 3000 feet from the very spot I grew up. This is unrelated to the event that happened 9 years ago on the OTHER side of the dome which caused us to sell our family home.

Joey

 

[Kayak Jack]

Thanks, Joey, for the update. Sad thing to have happen to your homeland.