Oil Spill Math: How Much Oil Is There?

The Gulf Oil Spill: it’s only 1/7th of the Superdome! But it’s more than 15 Washington Monuments! It’s only 9,200 average-size living rooms! By my new favorite metric, that I just did the math on, the amount of oil spilled would fill the gas tanks of 5,985,781 2010 Mercedes Benz E350 sedans! How should we feel about these numbers? “If 15 ½ Washington Monuments only fill the Superdome one-seventh of the way, then you could actually fit 93 more Washington Monuments in there. But shouldn’t you clean up the oil first?”