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Paul Noel: More specifically the sea floor will collapse. The collapse is absolutely certain. The only question is how it will collapse. As the oil escapes the deposit several types of collapse are possible. A simple subsidence would allow this to happen safely. If the canyon where they have drilled subsides in the wrong place, you could see the effect of a land slide under the sea. This is the Tsunami cause event more than any other with the most potential. This shifts massive quantities of water. The canyon is about 2 miles deep. The well is on a mesa about half way down the slope of the canyon. If the earth merely cracks and slides a little this might seem a minor event. Unfortunately the event could let oil escape catastrophically and in an uncontrolled release this has real danger to even the people of Europe.

I would not want anyone to think that I am projecting this as a certain event. It is a possible event. The deposit of oil in the central Gulf of Mexico is several orders of magnitude larger than those in the Saudi Arabian deposits. It is also massively higher pressure. The Saudi and Kuwaiti fields are much less pressure than this deposit. A lot depends on the connection between the Macondo well and the deeper in the center of the Gulf of Mexico. A catastrophic failure of the canyon wall under subsidence events that are possible could bring up such a massive quantity of oil that it would not only soil the US Gulf of Mexico and the US Atlantic coast, it would dump oil onto the European shores as well.