Regardless, the researchers say, the flow rate during the height of the largest flood would have been enough to move house-sized boulders and to carry 1-meter-wide stoneasilyeasily asmallerer streams transport sand and silt.
Shell says the flow rate is now less than a barrel a day.
On Friday morning, the corps said, the flow rate at that spot was 1.45 million cubic feet per second and rising.
According to the government, on May 26, when BP was trying but failing to plug the well, Mr. Mix sent a text that said, "Too much flow rate — over 15,000," an apparent reference to a rate of greater than 15,000 barrels a day.
But those calculations were made before BP cut the riser pipe last week to accommodate the capping device, which administration officials have said could increase the flow rate by as much as 20 percent.
Critics of BP praised the ongoing criminal prosecutions over the flow rate, saying it may shed important new light on the energy giant's corporate culture.
In his opening statement, Brad Brian on behalf of Transocean and the aligned parties, said BP misrepresented the flow rate in April and May of 2010, delaying the well's capping.
A tankless heater that has a flow rate of, say, 3 gallons per minute should be able to quickly raise the temperature of that amount of water flowing through it from about 50 degrees to 140 degrees and then maintain that temperature for as long as the water continues flowing.
"They will nitpick at our experts for sure, but they will not tell you what the actual flow rate was," he said.
"The water going their way is enough for their 75 million gallons, plus the 13.6 million gallon flow rate," he said.
