Mapping the spill

I appreciate James Fallows' efforts to provide real scale to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It is truly horrifying. But, in fact, he actually does a disservice to his readers. The oil is not merely floating on the surface. It has depth, and comparing it to the Eastern Seaboard or the Bay Area or whatever surface scale doesn't convey just how tremendous this thing is going to be. I've yet to see an estimate of just how many million cubic gallons are going to have gushed out of this hole in the earth's crust.

UPDATE: Alert reader "Tom" tells me that a gallon is a unit of volume so "cubic gallon" is redundant, once again illustrating that my readers is smarter than me.