On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez dumped 10.8 million gallons of oil into the pristine waters of Prince William Sound. If this spill had happened in open water, how many square miles of ocean would be covered by an oil slick that is 0.5 mm thick?
Check my thinking.
I would go to google.com and type in
"10.8 million gallons to cubic millimeters" without the quotation marks. That's a lot easier than trying to convert yourself. Now we know the volume is
V = pi*r2 *h.
Plug in the value for V from Google, and solve for pi*r2 by diving V by h (h=0.5 mm). The answer you get will be pi*r2 which is the area. Then go to google and type in "the area value you have to square miles" without the quotation marks and hit enter.
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To calculate the area covered by an oil slick, we need to multiply the surface area of the slick (in square meters) by the conversion factor to square miles. Let's break down the steps to calculate the area covered by the oil slick.
Step 1: Convert gallons to liters
10.8 million gallons can be converted to liters by multiplying by the conversion factor: 1 gallon = 3.78541 liters.
So, 10.8 million gallons = 10.8 million * 3.78541 = 40,877,028.8 liters.
Step 2: Convert liters to cubic meters
To convert liters to cubic meters, you need to divide the amount in liters by 1000. So, 40,877,028.8 liters = 40,877,028.8 / 1000 = 40,877.0288 cubic meters.
Step 3: Calculate the surface area of the oil slick
To determine the surface area of the oil slick, we need to multiply the volume of the oil slick (in cubic meters) by the reciprocal of its thickness (in meters).
Thickness: 0.5 mm = 0.5 / 1000 = 0.0005 meters.
Surface Area = Volume / Thickness
Surface Area = 40,877.0288 cubic meters / 0.0005 meters = 81,754,057.6 square meters.
Step 4: Convert square meters to square miles
To convert the surface area from square meters to square miles, we need to multiply by the conversion factor: 1 square mile = 2.59 square kilometers.
Conversion factor: 1 square kilometer = 0.386102 square miles.
So, 81,754,057.6 square meters = 81,754,057.6 * 0.386102 = 31,559,291.1 square miles.
Therefore, if the Exxon Valdez spill had happened in open water, it would have covered approximately 31,559,291.1 square miles of ocean with an oil slick that is 0.5 mm thick.