BP Oil Spill extent

Another good analysis of the oil spill to supplement my earlier post on the subject comes from Discover Magazine: The BP Oil Plume.  I love it when folks have their BS detectors running.

...the total volume of the leak was estimated to be 780,000 cubic meters of oil.

If we were to take this volume and spread it out in a layer 1 millimeter thick, it would cover an area of 780 million square meters, which is a square about 28 kilometers on a side.

Yes, it's a lot of oil.  But the Gulf of Mexico is a very large area.  Check out their photo depiction that shows the amount of oil spilled as compared to the Pentagon.   Those that call it a "Manhattan-sized" spill should probably mean as large as a building on Manhattan.