This is a little off-topic, but in the interest of accurately conceptualizing the Gulf oil leak, I thought a few real-world examples of “just how much oil is that?” might help.

To visualize the Gulf oil leak:

1 barrel of oil = 42 gallon milkjugs.

Actual measured crude captured: 648,000 milkjugs per day = 2000 milkjugs over 646,000 gallons.

646,000 gallons per day equals 1 cubic foot per second. (A cube 1×1x1 moving 1 foot in one second).

Latest worst scenario “guesstimate” of the leak is 2,520,000 milk jugs per day lost, or a rate of just under 4 cfs.

This is 1/107 of the daily flow of Big Spring, or 1/72 of the daily discharge at Greer Spring.

2/89 (roughly 1/45) of the water in the Jacks Fork flowing by Alley Spring June 15.

1/60 of the Black River at Annapolis and 1/162 of the same river at Williamsville.

1/10 the daily flow of Round Spring.

1/2500 of the maximum regulated outflow per second of Lake Wappapello.

1/125000 of the volume of the Mississippi at St Louis on June 15.

The Gulf of Mexico, by the way, contains 643 * 10^17 or 643,000,000,000,000,000 or 643 quadrillion gallons of water, according to official EPA estimates.