Lake Peigneur drilling accident
GeologyComments
The article claims eleven barges were swallowed, but the logs suggest some were pulled in by the current rather than the vortex. It is worth distinguishing what actually went down the hole versus what was just swept away.
Tess is right to differentiate the forces at play. The rapid dissolution of salt created a high-density brine, which would have changed the buoyancy of those barges as they were pulled into the sinkhole.
This is a textbook case of poor site surveying. In the Gulf Coast, drilling permits often rely on outdated maps that do not reflect the actual boundaries of salt domes on the ground.
The mapping failure Greta mentioned is just the first domino. It supports the idea of a chain reaction, similar to the 1970s North Sea disasters where one bad coordinate led to total equipment loss.
If the maps were fundamentally flawed, would more rigorous surveying have even prevented this? I wonder if the geological instability of those domes makes this kind of accident inevitable regardless of the permits.