cmcclain
Posts by this author
December 18, 2006
Joshua Rosenau over at Thoughts from Kansas reminded me about the recent reauthorizing and updating of the MSA. What's this mean for the deep sea?
From Oceana...
The legislation significantly improves the protection of deep-sea corals and sponges from bottom trawling and other destructive…
December 18, 2006
American supermarket chain Whole Foods Market has decided to stop marketing Icelandic products because of Iceland resuming commercial whaling.
December 18, 2006
You ask and we deliver! And if you have ever had any doubt we are the baddest blog ever, we have carnivorous sponge video! Bolstered by a commenter about the mechansism of flesh eating sponges, I asked Dr. Vacelet to give some more insight into this process.
I was pointed to Vacelet & Duport…
December 18, 2006
Click here if you want to know why this is the weirdest Christmas present ever.
December 18, 2006
A team under the Deep Atlantic Stepping Stones project possibly has unofficially discovered a new species of deep-sea eel. According to the explorers, numerous underwater sea mountains were also discovered, separated from each other by deep water and unexpectedly shaped like squares and triangles…
December 17, 2006
What country as an American would you prefer to take residence in, Iran or Iceland? Sure you said Iceland...with high literacy rates and polar hotties there may even be a science fiction reading honey*. But maybe you should go with Iran.
A recent article in the Mehr News titled Bottom trawl, most…
December 17, 2006
It had been assumed for a century before that the deep-sea fauna was depauperate, and prior to then that the great depths were essentially sterile. These ideas were largely a carry over from Edward Forbes in the late 1800's, who proposed the azoic hypothesis for the deep sea. Interestingly, his…
December 16, 2006
Although the earliest interest and sampling in the deep sea occurred in the late 1800's, a majority of deep-sea exploration did not occur until after the 1960's. The current amount of sampling and exploration of this great environment is without precedent. Despite this, new species and new…
December 15, 2006
The World Conservation Union as released Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Deep Waters and High Seas and you can download your own copy! Excellent information and pictures. Print them up and give them as presents for the holidays. Sure everyone for the next year will talk about how much a geek you…
December 15, 2006
I like maps...a lot. I get excited about GIS and the monthly map insert in National Geographic. A great map awakens the explorer in me. So when I saw the new map from CSIRO, I was torn.
The map is brilliant, maybe too brilliant. The map shows the locations of offshore minerals near Australia…
December 15, 2006
India has developed devices to search the depths of the ocean - to as deep as over 5,000 meters (5 km)
Yeah!...for economic exploration, joining a league of nations that are developing such capability to exploit ocean wealth.
Booo!'Once fully tested, we will be able to demonstrate and study what…
December 15, 2006
It is well known that ~70% of the earth's surface is covered by water. Of this, 90% lies beyond the continental shelf and is greater than 200m with 79% is greater than 1000m. However, scientist now know that the deep sea comprises a variety of habitats such as methane seeps, seamounts,…
December 14, 2006
Everyone is going on about being a crazy historical figure but I want to be a pirate!
What kind of pirate am I? You decide!You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!Brought to you by Rum and Monkey
December 14, 2006
[The Archaen] was collected at Axial Volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge off the coast of Washington and Oregon. Fixing nitrogen at 92 C [198F] smashes the previous record by 28 C [82F], a record held by Methanothermococcus thermolithotrophicus, an archaeon that was isolated from geothermally heated…
December 14, 2006
Sure there is the destruction of marine habitats issue. Or maybe you prefer not to eat fish from the deep because they are oily, nasty, poop bottom feeders. Those are two fantastic reasons, but there is a third-child labor.
But many poor Pakistani families rely on incomes from their children…
December 14, 2006
The Scientist has a great write up about deep-sea biologists Victoria Orphan and Shana Goffredi.Victoria Orphan wanted to be a marine biologist ever since kindergarten. She even wrote it down in a Dr. Seuss book called My Book About Me. It still sits in her childhood bedroom, which she had painted…
December 14, 2006
The Portsmouth Herald discusses sexual dimorphism, specifically body size, in a cheeky sort of pop press way. This is something we never do (e.g. Man Eating Sponges). One comment has me concerned that the writer doesn't read DSN.But in many other species, it's the female who's the big one. In…
December 14, 2006
The deep sea represents those marine environments that occur beyond the continental shelf. The average depth at which this occurs is approximately 200m, so typically we define the as those environments greater than 200 meters and extending to approximately 10,000 m (the depth of Mariana's Trench…
December 13, 2006
Be careful there are 9 new species of carnivorous sponges. Luckily they are all deep sea so your chances of encountering one on any day are limited. But when the squid overlords take over they may call upon the sponges for the battle. You may not be scared but Vacelet (2006) describes how these…
December 13, 2006
To celebrate the move over and the holiday season, we will be reposting the 25 Things You Should Know About The Deep Sea series. There will be one repost a day starting the 12th and going through to the 25th.
December 13, 2006
In 1872, the instructions to the captain of the HMS Challenger, the first dedicated global exploration of the oceans, read explore "all aspects of the deep sea...You have a wide field and virgin ground before you."
Nearly 100 years later, C.P. Idyll notes in his forward of Abyss: The Deep Sea and…