If a ship dumped 10.8 million gallons of oil into the open ocean, how many square miles of ocean would be covered by an oil slick that is .5mm thick?
I would convert 10.8 million gallons to cubic millimeters. Use conversion factors for that. Then you know volume = area x depth so divide the volume by 0.5 mm to obtain the area in square millimeters. Than convert square millimeters to square miles. Again, use conversion factors for that. You can find these factors at
http://www.onlineconversion.com/
To calculate the area of the ocean covered by the oil slick, we need to convert the volume of oil (in gallons) to the area (in square miles). Here's how we can do that:
Step 1: Convert the volume of oil from gallons to cubic meters.
1 gallon ≈ 0.00378541 cubic meters.
So, the volume of oil dumped can be calculated as:
Volume of oil = 10.8 million gallons × 0.00378541 cubic meters/gallon.
Step 2: Convert the volume of oil in cubic meters to the area of the oil slick.
First, we need to convert the volume to square meters.
To do this, we need to assume a uniform thickness for the oil slick. In this case, the thickness is given as 0.5mm.
1 cubic meter = 1,000,000 cubic centimeters (cm³).
Convert 0.5mm to meters by dividing by 1000: 0.5mm ÷ 1000 = 0.0005 meters.
Now, we can calculate the area:
Area = Volume of oil ÷ Thickness of oil slick.
Step 3: Convert the area from square meters to square miles.
1 square meter ≈ 3.86102 × 10^(-7) square miles.
Finally, we're ready to calculate the area of the ocean covered by the oil slick. Let's plug in the values:
Area = (Volume of oil × 0.0005) ÷ (3.86102 × 10^(-7)).
Area = (10.8 million gallons × 0.00378541 cubic meters/gallon × 0.0005) ÷ (3.86102 × 10^(-7)).
Evaluating this expression will give us the area of the ocean covered by the oil slick in square miles.