Not a spill, a gusher

In the early 1990s, thousands of desperate Cuban balseros cast themselves adrift on rafts, tires and any other makeshift craft that could float. They shoved off even from the island's far shore, entrusting their lives to the powerful Loop Current that pushes north from the Yucatán, rounds Cuba, rushes through the Florida Straits, and spills into the Atlantic, seeding the Gulf Stream. Many drowned or perished from thirst. But others survived to wash up on Florida's east coast.

Now the Loop Current is in the news once again. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon gusher—please don't call it a "spill"—has begun trickling into the current, prompting anxious speculation as to how much will be swept up and where it will be borne. Only a small quantity of surface oil has been seen entering the current, but much more swirls below. Given the complex natures of both petroleum and marine waters, these underwater plumes will be extremely difficult to measure and track.

Language used belies prejudices and lack of information. To call what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico a spill is erroneous. A spill is to cause or allow (a liquid substance) to run or flow from a container.The Exxon Valdez disaster was a spill, for petroleum spilled out of the ship. This current disaster is not a spill.

Oil is far from a homogenous substance, even before it gets emulsified by waves, currents and sun. It's a complex mixture of liquids, gases and waxy solids that vary widely in weight and solubility. Ocean waters are likewise not uniform; they are made up of distinct water slabs differentiated by temperature and salinity, and propelled by wind and currents. When I first began using monitoring equipment—newly available in 1967—I tracked these water bodies-within-bodies and dubbed them "snarks" because of their elusiveness.

Expertise has not been brought to bear; BP has been allowed to run the show. More than a month ago an academic ascertained that much more than 5,000 barrells a day were gushing out into the Gulf; no one made much of that. Even the media let it go, too busy with finding the sensational.

Some eddies veer west, bouncing along the continental shelf at about three miles per day toward Texas. By late last month, according to mapping by Mitchell A. Roffer's highly regarded ocean forecasting service, this process had already begun: Tentacles of oil were extending west past the Loop Current. One eddy appears to have broken off and begun crawling to Texas. It may entrain escaping oil deep underwater for several months, relieving the Florida, Alabama and Mississippi coasts and the upper water column where most marine life lies.