June 1, 2012. New research from the University of Southampton has devised a new methodto more accurately measure gas bubbles in pipelines. The ability to measure gas bubbles in pipelines is vital to the manufacturing, power and petrochemical industries. In the case of harvesting petrochemicalsfrom the seabed, warning of bubbles present in the crude that is being harvested is crucial because otherwise when these bubbles are brought up from the seabed (where pressure is very high) to the surface where the rig is,the reduction in pressure causes these bubbles to expand and causes 'blow out'. A blow out is the sudden release of oil and/or gas from a well and issues with the blow out preventer were key in Deepwater Horizon oil spill(also known as the Macondo blowout) in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Currently, the most popular technique for estimating the gas bubble size distribution (BSD) is to send sound waves through the bubble liquid and compare the measured attenuation of the sound wave (loss in amplitude as it propagates) with that predicted by theory.