cmcclain | November 9, 2007This just on the wire from ETC...
In a shot across the bows of geoengineering companies, the London Convention (the International Maritime Organization body that oversees dumping of wastes at sea) today unanimously endorsed a scientific statement of concern on ocean fertilisation and declared its intention to develop international regulations to oversee the controversial activities. It further advised states that such large-scale schemes are "currently not justified."
This is a smart move by the LC allowing for substantial assessment before large-scale 'trials' are conducted in biodiversity…
cmcclain | November 8, 2007
It's the muppet show!
It's time to play the music.
Its time to light the lights.
It's time to meet the muppets
On the Muppet Show tonight!
cmcclain | November 8, 2007Kevin was one of the winners of the three prizes in the DSN Fundapoolaza Challenge. Might I say he looks damn fine in that t-shirt! I'm not saying I have a man crush on Kevin just that octopus shirt from the Monterey Bay Aquarium is nice.
cmcclain | November 7, 2007New cool research from Wagner et al. that despite the lack of "day" and "night", deep-sea fish experience daily cycles. What is the trigger? Diurnal changes in bottom currents corresponding to tidal fluctuations. The below graphs shows current direction and velocity on deep-sea floor in the NE Atlantic Ocean indicating 12.5 hour tidal cycles.
The researchers followup by measuring pineal and retinal melatonin in two bottom-dwelling fish, a grenadier Coryphaenoides armatus and a deep-sea eel Synaphobranchus kaupii(below). They additionally quantified the release of melatonin in cultures of…
cmcclain | November 6, 2007So my current research focuses on the influence of canyon topography on the biodiversity and body size of deep-sea invertebrates. To address this requires lots of cores, sorting, and identification. My current favorite species is this tube-building polychaete (50-70mm). Another great example of the wondrous biodiversity of deep-sea mud.
So far only one individual in all my core samples. Currently, I have no idea what species or genus this guy or gal is so I am tentatively calling it Kraken Worm!. Give me a break! I'm a mollusc man. Post below if you recognize this beast. Click for a…
cmcclain | November 5, 2007
Ocean Nourishment Corporation of Sydney, Australia just got the green light to dump several hundred tons of industrially-produced urea in to the Sulu Sea between the Philippines and Borneo. Assuming you urinate about 1.5 liters a day (range is 800ml to 2000ml) that is about the same amount of 500 years of your collected urine...if you actually decided to collect your urine. Several international civil societies called upon the London Convention, the UN committee that regulates ocean dumping to prevent the experiment. Again the idea, is to promote phytoplankton growth and eventually sequester…
cmcclain | November 5, 2007I was just thinking the other day how I wish I had crab claws so I could crush academic opposition. Grab the children and run to the hills, it is attack of Crab Claw Craig!
petnoyer | November 3, 2007
Rick laments below that I ruined his Friday with the anchor scar story, so I'll try to spice up his weekend with a lighter note. The road from Saba's airport to Fort Bay Harbor is a thing of wonder. It climbs and descends the sleeping volcano through villages like Hell's Gate, Windwardside, and The Bottom.
People once believed "The Road" could not be built on Saba Island until civil engineer Josephus Lambert Hassell took a correspondence course in engineering and organized a crew of locals to start construction in 1938. Nine years later, the road was complete. The first car would arrive in…
petnoyer | November 2, 2007Thank God it's Friday. Work moves to the back burner, social issues move to the front burner. This week we provide two underwater movies to help your work hours pass quickly. Both videos (below the fold) show the devastating impacts of anchor damage on the Caribbean Sea's Saba Bank, in the Dutch Antilles. The videos are short, each about 2.5 minutes long, but the memory should last years. The battle to limit these anchor scars has only just begun.
Special thanks to Shelley Lundvall of the Saba Conservation Foundation for shooting these and posting these at YouTube.
The first video shows…
petnoyer | November 2, 2007
If you wondered yesterday why we're collecting gorgonian samples (as well as fish, shrimp, crabs, algae, and sponges) for the Saba Conservation Foundation, this 6m anchor scar on the Saba Bank should help to explain. We're collecting biological samples in order to document the biodiversity of the Saba Bank, and by doing so, we're helping our partners to win protection from oil tanker's anchors.
The Saba Bank is on enormous shallow offshore platform (60km x 40km) west across the channel from Saba Island in the Netherlands Antilles. Saba bank has been called the world's third largest submerged…
petnoyer | November 1, 2007Hello again. Sorry to be absent from posting at DSN lately, but I was all wrapped up in a diving expedition to Saba Bank in the Netherlands Antilles. You'll hear more about it as we assemble the material and results, but first thing's first. Let's get to the good stuff!
This here 8' tiger shark below circled me and Dr. Juan Armando Sanchez twice as we collected gorgonians in 25m of water over a flat rubble landscape on the Saba Bank interior last week.
We didn't get really nervous until the animal turned to approach us. Juan was fearless enough to snap off 3 or 4 great shots with his Sony…
cmcclain | October 31, 2007Slow news week but stumbled upon this over my morning cup of joe.
Illex argentinus which is the biggest in terms of volume, value and also size of the squid. Typical annual catches are around 150,000 tonnes with much of the catch destined for the Far East although significant amounts also go to Europe; the Loligo gahi are caught by large stern trawlers almost all of which are registered in the Falkland.
So I am starting a thread for you to post links to pictures of marine invertebrate inspired coins and stamps. As they come in I will add them to the post! While we are at it let's do…
cmcclain | October 29, 2007In the words of Rick at MBSL&S
So let's just say you have a couple hundred thousand metric tons of iron filings laying around the house. While in the tub one day, you conceive of a terrific idea of dumping all that iron into the ocean, thus seeding phytoplankton growth (iron is a limiting nutrient for phytoplankton) and sequestering atmospheric carbon for centuries deep underwater. Voila! Hello carbon sink... goodbye global warming. And even better, you can sell shares of your iron filing dumping as carbon offsets to individuals and business who are looking to feel more carbon neutral. It…
cmcclain | October 29, 2007 Many of you have probably seen this already. No doubt, you have said something like
This thing has teeth where a beak should be -- disquietingly human teeth, at that.
The picture is disturbing to say the least and will haunt my dreams. So is the picture real? Yes.
The species is Promachoteuthis sulcus recently described by Young, Vecchione, and Roper. The published figure is...
What you see is the oral view of the brachial and buccal crown. The supposed teeth are papillae on the lips of the buccal mass common in cephalopods (See below).
Image from tolweb.org
cmcclain | October 26, 2007Rick at MBSL&S tagged me to produce "my favorite ocean-themed scary movies." My favorite has to be Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961).
Edward Wain is inept Government Agent XK342. He is on the trail of mobster Renzo Capeto, a Bogart wanna-be who is transporting Colonel Tostada, a group of exiled Cuban nationals, and a large portion of the Cuban treasury out of Cuba. Renzo is also accompanied by Mary-Belle Monahan (an infamous gangster moll), Happy Jack Monahan (her dim-bulb gangster-in-training brother) and Pete Peterson Jr. (a hoodlum/animal impersonator). Wain assumes the identity…
cmcclain | October 25, 2007You can find anything on the internet...
And another
And finally a trailer from the Aquaman series than never made it on the air.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvmB8uCSRMQ
cmcclain | October 25, 2007From JAMSTEC: Scaly foot--a spiral gastropod clad in iron sulfide scales
Found only in an extremely limited region of hyrdothermal areas within the Indian Ocean, which is called "Kairei Field". As the name suggests, this creature is covered in rugged scales that protect it from predators. How it actually creates its iron sulfide scales, however, is not yet fully understood. A JAMSTEC research team succeeded in observing the creature in an onboard tank for the first time in February 2006. You can download my paper on this species for free here.
cmcclain | October 24, 2007
Sure Sphere is a filthy piece of literary swill but it also a vital component of any submersible. As you may remember from geometry, for any given volume, a sphere has the smallest surface area, or for any given surface area, a sphere will have the greatest volume. From a practical standpoint for a deep-sea submersible, this means less surface for pressure to act upon. Thus the choice for the 'large' compartment to hold humans on a deep diving submersible is a sphere.
The first deep-diving sphere was the aptly named Bathysphere of Barton and Beebe, making its first unmanned test in 1930.…