petnoyer
Posts by this author
July 23, 2008
We can't joke around too much about this Hurricane Dolly, I'm afraid. The weather is not terrible here in Corpus, but conditions are rapidly deteriorating in Brownsville. We now have reports of tornado warnings in nearby counties, and confirmed power outages for more than 9000 people.
News reports…
July 22, 2008
I am liveblogging Hurricane Dolly from Corpus Christi, Texas. It's raining here in the Coastal Bend. Not too much wind. Thanks to the storm we have a "snow day" at school. Plus, I don't have to water the lawn for a week. Things are looking up, but flooding is forecast for the region, so there could…
July 22, 2008
Newsflash! This just in from the Weather Channel:
Dolly has strengthened to become the second hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. It has maximum sustained winds of 75 mph; a category one hurricane.
Hurricane Dolly may continue to strengthen tonight and tomorrow morning before landfall…
July 22, 2008
Clouds can be a sailor's best friend. Given, you'd have to be an awfully lonely sailor, and probably have to scratch a half dozen unmentionables off the list before you ever got to "clouds", but, ... hey, some modern sailors keep a nice cloud book with them in the navigation room. OK? It helps to…
July 22, 2008
The view from my desk in the kitchen is a sunny garden near the bay, but Tropical Storm Dolly is moving slowly west from 200 km off the coast here in the Gulf of Mexico. I am "in the Cone", but seem to be sidestepping the projected landfall as Dolly veers slightly southwest. The one question on my…
July 21, 2008
The supermarket in Corpus Christi is jammed and classes are cancelled the day after tomorrow at Texas A&M Universe in anticipation of Hurricane Dolly's landfall sometime Wednesday. Thinking of making bumpers stickers. We're about 100 miles north of the projected landfall destination in…
July 18, 2008
The internet's abuzz about this photo of a surfer in Smyrna Beach, Florida (the sharkbite capitol of the world). Is it real or is it Photoshop? An article from London's Evening Standard has the most extensive coverage found so far. The blacktip apparently leapt from behind the surfer while a…
July 17, 2008
World Wildlife Fund has an entertaining new website called WaveForward where you can "discover your inner fish" by answering a few questions about where you vacation, what movies you watch, and what you like to do at parties. You can also learn more about Sustainable Seafood and Healthy Ecosystems…
July 16, 2008
People seem fascinated by the prospect of purchasing virtual real estate at Second Life, but if you ask me, Google Earth is a better place to stake your claim. For instance, I am studying deep sea-fans, or gorgonians, in the West Atlantic twilight zone between 50-150 m. Many of these have their…
July 11, 2008
Photo by Dr. William Precht.
A recent study published in Science Express by Dr. Kent Carpenter of Old Dominion University and a consortium of nearly thirty coral reef ecologists has determined that one-third of coral face increased extinction threat due to climate change and local anthropogenic…
July 8, 2008
Students from the New York City Home Educators Association (NYCHEA) took second place behind Blue Hills Technical High School in the 2008 NE Regional ROV Design Competition sponsored by the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) project. Winners advanced to the international competition on…
July 2, 2008
Unlike people in the glamour states of Florida and California, folks here in Texas don't mind a little offshore oil development. We view the petroleum industry as two parts necessary evil and one part benevolent overlord. And, we feel this way for free. We don't get paid off like the lucky folks in…
June 30, 2008
Sea turtle biologists in the Gulf of California in northwest Mexico are having continued success with efforts to monitor and restore sea turtle populations in the region, according to DSN's field correspondent Wallace J Nichols. Three critically endangered hawksbill turtles Eretmochelys imbricata…
June 25, 2008
Surfrider Foundation's online newsletter Soup is reporting new rules from the National Marine Fisheries Service that federal shark fisheries in the Atlantic ocean and Gulf of Mexico will need to bring shark fins in to port with the carcass of the animal attached. Environmental News Service details…
June 24, 2008
In 1982, following years of civil unrest and economic crisis in Argentina, the Argentine military government invaded the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic in an effort to reclaim the territory from the British. This is known as the Falklands War. Nearly 900 people died in the conflict, mostly…
June 19, 2008
New York Times reviews Werner Herzog's Antarctic documentary "Encounters at the end of the World" calling it 'hauntingly beautiful'. The film is set at McMurdo Station, and features 'melancholy' scientists, extended landscape shots, Weddell seals, and jellyfish.
NYT reviewer Manohla Dargis…
June 16, 2008
The Wealth from Oceans Flagship at the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) released a new report on seafloor mining Friday. The story follows on the heels of controversy about the environmental impacts of seafloor mining. Australia's EEZ is rich in…
June 12, 2008
The Bush administration has outlined plans for a "blue legacy" that would use Presidential authority to establish new national monuments, along the lines of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. This is something Deep-Sea News reported on two years ago as a case of "sanctuary envy" not to be…
June 10, 2008
You would think that deep-sea squid could hide from human pollution like dichlorodiphenyl- trichloroethane (DDT) and tributyltin (TBT), but these and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are accumulating in our cephalopod brethren, according to a new study about to be released in the journal…
June 10, 2008
Deep-sea corals bring people together. Geologists, ecologists, taxonomists, managers and climatologists all get a kick out of our heartless, brainless, colonial friends. So, we get together once every two years to kick back and share stories at the International Deep-Sea Coral Symposium. The first…
June 7, 2008
A group of five European recreational divers separated from their dive boat in Komodo National Park, Indonesia later came ashore on a nearby island only to find themselves fending off a Komodo dragon and scraping mussels from the rocks for food. The group was rescued two days later. Read more here…
June 6, 2008
The Global Oceanographic Data Center (GODAC) has a webpage of favorite deep-sea videos from the Japanese Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) with cool names like "Milky Way floats on the abyss" and "Unusual atmosphere". What better way to whittle away the hours AND do your…
June 6, 2008
The deep-sea cup coral Flabellum deludens Marenzeller 1904, from the Philippines between 200 - 700 m depth. More here at the Ocean Biogeographic Information System.
June 5, 2008
Ship strikes are a common source of mortality for right whales and humpbacks in the North Atlantic. CNN runs a story on how a plan to save critically endangered right whales is muddled in bureaucracy thanks to...
The World Shipping Council, an industry group representing more than two dozen global…
June 4, 2008
You have to respect The Nature Conservancy (TNC) because they put their money where there mouth is. While some other organizations have a tendency to turn "conservation" into "conversation", TNC has a tendency to purchase property and throw up a no trespassing sign. Sure, it gets them into trouble…
June 2, 2008
A placoderm fossil called "mother fish" has been recovered from Gogo, an ancient coral reef site off the Kimberley coast of Northwest Australia. The fossil was recovered with embryo and umbilical cord still attached, providing evidence of live birth and sex with penetration in the Middle Paleozoic…
May 21, 2008
Did you ever look at Google's digital Earth model and notice something missing? Like 70% of Earth's topography, for instance? The seafloor shown there is a kind of "shadow topography". It's satellite derived. Fortunately for us, everything in Google Earth with an elevation less than zero is about…
May 20, 2008
If you'd have fought like a man, you needn't hang like a dog- Anne Bonny
Anne Bonny is one of two famous lady pirates from the Caribbean. She was born of a lawyer and his maid in Ireland, was disowned by her father, and married a sailor who stole her away to the Caribbean. He was a fink. Anne left…
May 20, 2008
Deep coral biologists like myself are continually looking to shallow reefs for applicable paradigms. A new online seminar on coral reef futures sponsored by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies provides about 100 examples in a set of FREE online lectures given by a parade of stars…
May 17, 2008
Dolphins swim through water by moving their flipper in an up and down motion. Sharks propel themselves forward moving from side to side. Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps uses both these techniques to help break records. More and more swimmers are turning to these animals for inspiration, both…