

Visualize the Deepwater oil spil over your hometown - gcr
http://www.beowulfe.com/oil/
Cross-posted from here: http://www.reddit.com/r/somethingimade/comments/c8nji/i_made_an_oil_spill_map_visualizer_tool/<p>Move the oil spill over your hometown to get a better sense of its magnitude.
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mortenjorck
This is actually a great way to visualize the size of pretty much anything
within the scale range of 10^-1 to 10^2 miles across. Nothing humanizes a
distance more than seeing it directly in comparison to what you experience
every day.

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aquateen
Why didn't you type "1/10 to 100 miles"?

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JoachimSchipper
I think it's related to the great "powers of 10" film; see
<http://www.powersof10.com/>.

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jbrennan
If only there were some giant atomic furnace beaming us down energy from
above, maybe this wouldn't happen.

If only.

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stdan27
For anyone in the UK, this is more like "Visualise the Deepwater oil spill
over your part of the country"

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Confusion
Or in the case of smaller countries like NL: visualize the oil spill over half
your country.

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alex_c
Enough to cover one of the Great Lakes.

Charming.

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jz
I thought the exact opposite. I'm in Chicago and the spill covers a 1/3 to 1/2
of Lake Michigan. After zooming out though, it clearly would cover Lake Erie
or Lake Ontario. The thing that was put in perspective for me was the shear
size of the Atlantic.

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spot
Isn't this a knockoff of <http://paulrademacher.com/oilspill/> ?

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btucker
Well the concept of projecting something onto a non-native locale for
comparison purposes is not exactly groundbreaking. So I'm not sure it really
matters which came first.

Call me "old fashioned", but I actually find the simpler Google Maps based
visualization more effective in conveying the scale.

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nostromo
I actually thought it was bigger... (perhaps from all the coverage) so I guess
for me this website is relatively good news.

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angstrom
Isn't this just the tip of the iceberg? Much of it is in a suspend emulsion
that doesn't neccessarily match the surface outline.

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nostromo
Maybe. Regular oil floats to the surface. I'm not sure about all this crude
however.

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beezm
It floats.

Until it forms into little tarballs, and then sinks below the surface of the
water. Combined with the "safe" dispersant BP is using to thin the oil, it
helps the whole sinking process go faster.

The size of this overlay is more so a depiction of the "core" spill. The slick
above and below water extends to a much larger area, and also moves around
daily.

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mildavw
You might want a label on your form field. I wasn't sure what to put in there
to move the spill. "Location:" would work.

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gcr
oh, I didn't make this, but I should have cited my source. Sorry.

Cross-posted from here:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/somethingimade/comments/c8nji/i_made...](http://www.reddit.com/r/somethingimade/comments/c8nji/i_made_an_oil_spill_map_visualizer_tool/)

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EvanK
I live in Houston, so I don't have to visualize...It IS sort of over my
hometown.

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s-phi-nl
Does anyone know what causes the big clear spots in the middle?

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bena
Hey, I very nearly don't have to imagine it. I can practically live it. :D

Type in Houma, LA, USA in the box next to "Move the Spill"

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felideon
Wow, it would cover all of South Florida and reach to the Bahamas. (Enter
Miami, FL to visualize.)

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statenjason
Covers the Great Salt Lake, and most of the upper corner of Utah.

