Observe fireboat responding to crews battling the fire during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010Fireboat response crews battling the blazing remnants of the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, April 21, 2010.(more)See all videos for this articleThe Deepwater Horizon rig, owned and operated by offshore-oil-drilling company Transocean and leased by company , was situated in the Macondo oil prospect in the Mississippi Canyon, a valley in the . The oil well over which it was positioned was located on the seabed 4,993 feet (1,522 metres) below the surface and extended approximately 18,000 feet (5,486 metres) into the . On the night of April 20 a surge of blasted through a core recently installed by contractor in order to seal the well for later use. It later emerged through documents released by that a similar incident had occurred on a BP-owned rig in the in September 2008. Both cores were likely too weak to withstand the pressure because they were composed of a mixture that used gas to accelerate curing. Once released by the fracture of the core, the traveled up the Deepwater rig’s riser to the platform, where it ignited, killing 11 workers and injuring 17. The rig capsized and sank on the morning of April 22, rupturing the riser, through which had been injected in order to counteract the upward of oil and natural gas. Without any opposing , oil began to discharge into the gulf. The volume of oil escaping the damaged well—originally estimated by BP to be about 1,000 barrels per day—was thought by U.S. officials to have peaked at more than 60,000 barrels per day. Leaking oil Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010: path of the oilMap depicting the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, caused by the explosion of an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana on April 20, 2010. Scientists noted that the prevailing paths of the Gulf of Mexico's Loop Current and a detached eddy located to the west kept much of the oil, which covered a sizable part of the gulf some three months after the accident, from reaching shore.(more)2 of 2See how wire entanglement inside a well bore mitigates the effects of blowout preventer failure in an oil wellLearn about the experimental use of entangled wire as an obstruction to mitigate the effects of blowout preventer failure in an oil well.(more)See all videos for this articleAlthough attempted to activate the rig’s blowout preventer (BOP), a fail-safe mechanism designed to close the channel through which oil was drawn, the device malfunctioned. Forensic analysis of the BOP completed the following year determined that a set of massive blades known as blind shear rams—designed to slice through the pipe carrying oil—had malfunctioned because the pipe had bent under the pressure of the rising gas and oil. (A 2014 report by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board claimed that the blind shear rams had activated sooner than previously thought and may have actually punctured the pipe.) Efforts in May to place a containment dome over the largest leak in the broken riser were thwarted by the buoyant action of gas —gas molecules in an ice matrix—formed by the reaction of natural gas and cold water. When an attempt to employ a “top kill,” whereby was pumped into the well to stanch the flow of oil, also failed, BP in early June turned to an apparatus called the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) cap. With the damaged riser shorn from the LMRP—the top segment of the BOP—the cap was lowered into place. Though fitted loosely over the BOP and allowing some oil to escape, the cap enabled BP to approximately 15,000 barrels of oil per day to a . The addition of an ancillary collection system comprising several devices, also tapped into the BOP, increased the collection rate to approximately 25,000 barrels of oil a day., On April 20, 2010, an explosion and fire occurred on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit, which was owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field about 40 miles (64 km) southeast off the Louisiana coast., Deepwater Horizon oil spill, largest marine oil spill in history, caused by an April 20, 2010, explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig—located in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 41 miles (66 km) off the coast of Louisiana—and its subsequent sinking on April 22..