cmcclain | March 20, 2008From CNN...
A woman sunbathing on a boat died after a stingray leaped from the water off the Florida Keys on Thursday and struck her, officials said.
kevin z | March 20, 2008I think this graphic illustrates Craig's last Just One Thing Challenge.
Hat tip to Gear Junkie's Daily Dose blog via GT.
petnoyer | March 19, 2008
Ongoing discussion about the potential effects of ocean acidification on deep-sea corals has me wondering about the case of acid rain in North American lakes. This is something we understand much better. Environment Canada has a great looking and informative Freshwater Website that includes this handy graphic here.
Isn't it amazing that acid rain can have almost the same pH as battery acid? And that freshwater fish can survive in such a large range of conditions? I find it remarkable. Of course, you won't find "freshwater corals" in any lake, so its just food for thought, a bit like…
petnoyer | March 18, 2008The global ocean has already taken up half of the atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by humans over the last 200 years, so the ongoing effects of climate change are dampened. That's right, you can thank the ocean for saving the planet so far. Without the ocean, what we would have? A place that looks a lot like Mars.
Ocean chemistry is changing, though, ever so slightly. The global ocean pH is about 8.2, slightly basic, but pH is falling (~0.1) due to an increased concentration of hydrogen ions resulting from the chemical reaction of water molecules and carbon dioxide at the ocean surface.…
petnoyer | March 18, 2008Are deep-sea and pelagic habitats adequately represented in the new US plan for a national system of marine protected areas? I dunno, it just came out! We have 30 days to comment....
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) is pleased to announce the release of the Revised Draft Framework for Developing the National System of Marine Protected Areas for a 30 day comment period ending April 16. You can find electronic copies of the draft framework and associated documents at http://www.mpa.gov.
The release of this revised draft…
kevin z | March 18, 2008A blue whale from the eastern Pacific. According to the IUCN they are endangered. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
It amazes me that we can still in this day and era of satellites, technology and boats shipping goods everywhere that we can still find new populations of the world's largest living animal.
"...a century of commercial whaling almost pushed the blue whale to extinction. The slaughter peaked in 1931, when 29,000 were killed in one season. By the time hunting blue whales was outlawed in 1966 it is estimated that the population had been reduced by 99 percent, from perhaps half a million to…
cmcclain | March 17, 2008A reader brought to my attention a question that is floating around the internet.
Q: If lightning strikes the ocean, do the marine animals get hurt or killed? (Sault Ste. Marie, Minn.
Honestly, I have never given this question any thought. Given that I am a biologist and not a physicist means I may not even be the best to answer it. The first question is obviously how often lightning strikes the ocean?
The map below assembled by a crack team of NASA scientists shows the number of flashes per km2 per year. You can see that most of the worlds oceans are at less than 2 strikes per year (…
cmcclain | March 16, 2008
This begins a new series here at DSN. With the addition of Kevin, we are filled to the gills with all deep and biology. This allows me to pursue some other interests of mine. I get really excited about all manner of mechanical things. I have very fond memories of the 1967 Ford Fairlane with a 289 V8 that I drove and loved like a member of the family. I enjoyed spending time with my father as a kid as he worked on a series of old cars. Indeed, those times infused we with continued interest in how things work, not to mention some floral language.
In the first installation I discuss the…
cmcclain | March 16, 2008
On with the next challenge! We continue to grow in ranks with almost forty signed up and many following along. Please sign up! Latter in the year, those signed up for my team will take on Oprah's people in a cage match!
The last challenge was graciously sponsored by Strictly Organic Coffee who will kick in some free organic Hazelnuts (type Deep-Sea News Just One Thing Challenge into the Special Order Instructions box) with every purchase for the entire month of March. You should order some because the coffee is organic, shade-grown, free-trade, and the coffee pulp left over from…
kevin z | March 15, 2008
Did you actually make it through that?? Did you catch the strange reason why the sea is blue? Apparently the ocean is a mirror (not entirely false) that reflects the blue sky, hence it is blue (not entirely true). Some hypothesize that the ocean is blue because it reflects the blue sky, but this would only be visible at relatively low angles of observation and on flat water.
So why is the ocean blue? Water itself isn't blue, right?
The most widely-held hypothesis is that blue wavelengths of light penetrates deeper while red wavelengths are rapidly absorbed by the water molecules and…
kevin z | March 14, 2008It is with great sadness I report the passing away of one of the world's greatest carcinologists, L.B. Holthuis. A carcinologist studies crustaceans and he contributed to the knowledge of many diverse types of crustaceans. A little about him from a Wikipedia entry:
"Holthuis was born in Probolingo, Java and obtained his doctorate from Leiden University in 1946. He was appointed the assistant curator of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (now Naturalis) in Leiden in 1941. He was the most prolific carcinologist of the 20th century, publishing more than 400 papers and books on many groups…
cmcclain | March 14, 2008The deep-sea octopus, Bathypolypus arcticus, hatching. Dr. James Wood discusses the biology and ecology of the species here.
cmcclain | March 13, 2008Credit to NOC and Deepscape.org: Coarse rocky ground with cirrate octopus (Cephalopod) above the seabed taken at 1126m in the Faroe-Shetland Channel. Others great images can be viewed by searching around their image bank.
From TOL:
The Cirrata contains about 40 species many of which are poorly known and of uncertain status...One of the most distinctive features of this group and the feature from which it derives its name, is the presence of cirri. The oral view of the arms and web of a cirrate below barely shows the cirri lining the arms but the insert show the cirri clearly. The cirri are…
cmcclain | March 13, 2008You read the title of this post, and the original paper, correctly. Brian H. sent this little gem of a paper to me today. Using SeaWiFS data from the last nine years, Polovina et al. show that in the North and South Pacific and Atlantic areas of low surface chlorophyll are in expanding by 0.8-4.3% per year. These areas have replaced higher surface chlorophyll with low surface area. The total expansion of these areas equals 6.6 million km2 (roughly 2/3 the size of the U.S.). The figure below shows a time series and regression line for the area with surface chlorophyll less than or equal to…
cmcclain | March 12, 2008Experiments in the deep sea are a novelty, like a healthy Southern breakfast. Mmm...biscuits...but I digress. If you want to run a experiment in the intertidal it usually requires $100 of pvc and $100 of a graduate students time (about three weeks). In the deep sea that same experiment will run you that $200 plus another $400,000 for ship and rov/submersible time. This may be one of the reasons why NSF hasn't gone for my last two grant submissions. Don't hesitate to contact me if you would like to fund my research...but I digress.
A recent study by Gallucci et al. manages to pull this off…
cmcclain | March 12, 2008Obviously, U-Haul has chosen a business model that will center on my future rentals.
Then I stared the great beast in the eye
You can see all the Super Graphics here. My favorites, excluding tiny above, include Limulus and the Tully Monster. Interestingly, the U-Haul site is chock-o-block full of information on these creatures, desktops you can download, and coloring pages (there goes my Thursday).
Giant squid are deep-sea creatures. Since the waters around Newfoundland are not deep, why or how do they end up there? One theory is that the Gulf Stream, a powerful current that flows northward…
petnoyer | March 11, 2008The March 2008 copy of Marine Technology magazine features the "ROV-AUV-UUV" annual report. You can read it online or sign up at Seadiscovery.com for a free subscription. It's probably the best deal in marine science next to student membership in the American Geophysical Union.
Beside the ROV review, this month's issue also features the undersea art of Barry Pearson and a story called "Private Idaho" about US Navy submarine testing in the relatively silent water of the lakes in Idaho.
Perhaps most exciting is the Saba Bank project highlighted in the feature article! I've been reporting from…
petnoyer | March 11, 2008Guest post by Dr. Christina Kellogg, USGS
Corals don't usually know what country they are living in, and those that do assure me that it does not affect their biology, just their politics. So, imagine the enthusiasm greeting the announcement of an Atlantic Ocean-wide research program to study coldwater coral ecosystems. That's right, we're talking about big picture science from the ground (or seafloor) up!
The Trans-Atlantic Coral Ecosystem Study (TRACES) program was unveiled at the February 14-18 AAAS meeting and will be the first project to trace the flow of genes and animals across the…
cmcclain | March 10, 2008On how to use cool technology and a neat ROV to create a unbelievably large path of destruction...
cmcclain | March 10, 2008Is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody out there?
Do you miss Peter and Kevin? So do I? Tell them so in the comments!