What happens to all the holes in the ground, once all the oil is

[Tuesday Afternoon]

gone? Will the earth collapse in on itself? :shrug:

[Oeditpus Rex]

1. Relax

When they're finished drilling, they plug 'em with gum.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. Does your chewing gum lose it's flavor on the bedpost over night?

:shrug: ;) :hi: :hug:

[Critters2]

2. I've wondered this, too. I used to live next to a very old church cemetery, and when

the caskets in the oldest graves completely decomposed, the ground above them would collapse in on them, leaving these holes and ridges. It's one of the reasons for using vaults in graves today.

So, if you remove all that oil, shouldn't it have the same effect, but much larger? It seems so to me.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

7. exactly...seems to reason

meh...what do we know, you and I? :hi:

[Critters2]

9. Indeed. Just one of the thousands areas where I'm no expert! :) nt

[Ptah]

3. Think Carlsbad Caverns.

Only darker.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

8. with all the stalactites and stalacmites?

[Ptah]

14. More like molars and incisors

[Tuesday Afternoon]

17. ahhh...so. in the end --

the dinosuars have the last laugh ;) :D

[Forkboy]

4. We fill them with ET Atari game cartridges.

A little gaming geek humor there for ya....

Try the veal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial

[Tuesday Afternoon]

11. one big massive land fill? what about the sinkholes? In this area

we have seen major buildings built on top of old landfills and both have had major sinkholes.

[Pierre.Suave]

6. I think they pump something down tehre

to help push out more oil, maybe it also holds up the ground...:shrug:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

12. oh really? like what? a sump pump?

[Pierre.Suave]

19. NO

a sump pump would pump stuff out, they pump out the oil and pump something down to replace it.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

21. Ohh-kay. gotcha.

a reverse sump pump...wonder what they are pumping in down there?

[Pierre.Suave]

22. I thought i heard it was water

but I may be wrong.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

23. but, water does not have the same viscosity as oil -- think it will

make a difference?

[Pierre.Suave]

24. no

I dont. Water is uncompress-able.

[Mojambo]

10. Nice place to live when the surface temperatures become intolerable. n/t

[Tuesday Afternoon]

13. me, you. And all the moles?

[Haole Girl]

15. Some answers for you:

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/497521

This is the answer I've heard before:

Petroleum doesn't actually form in "pools" of liquid. Instead, it saturates the pores of rock layers.

Extracting the oil from the rock layer leaves the rock intact in the same way that squeezing the water out of a sponge leaves the sponge intact.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

18. still...there is the weight distribution difference --

what happens after we squeeze all the oil out of the "sponge" ?

thanks for the link... I will click and read and educate myself.

[realisticphish]

16. emptying a sewer

doesn't make it more likely to collapse :shrug:

the oil was never a structural component. It's just trapped in the spaces were the rock formed natural traps

[Tuesday Afternoon]

20. the dinosaurs got trapped in teh rawks?

:shrug: :D :scared: :pals: :hi: