cmcclain | June 24, 2007Weather, O' Weather...you are my fair and fickle lover. On day 4, we sailed on from
Davidson to Patton Escarpment, but a 25+ knot wind kept the ROV out of the water. We
steamed further south with the intent of diving off the Channel Islands on the sheltered
leeward side. However, naval exercises in the area (i.e. if you come near us we will
torpedo you out of the water) and a further degradation of the sea state (from Moderate
Nausea to I Think I Just Puked Up My Spleen) prevented us again from diving. We steamed
back north to take shelter in Monterey Bay, taking a full 2 days as we made…
cmcclain | June 24, 2007
The Alvin submersible dives on the New England Seamount chain found plentiful coral colonys of whip coral, parasol coral, and beautiful spiraling Iridogorgia. These coral collections are made up of hundreds of tiny polyps, arranged in precise geometric patterns. Video courtesy of Les Watling, Mountains in the Sea Exploration, NOAA-OE.
cmcclain | June 23, 2007
The Crevices at 708 meters (2,323 feet) of a hydrothermal vent site are occupied by thriving aggregations of cutthroat (synaphobranchid) eels. These eels, which have now been identified as Dysommina rugosa, are known from trawl samples in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but have never before been studied in their natural habitat. The only common metazoan (multicellular) animals occupying these low-temperature hydrothermal vents, preliminary work indicates that they use the vent only as a place to live. They seem to feed not on chemosynthetic bacteria, but on crustaceans that pass by…
cmcclain | June 22, 2007
This map depicts a hypothetical Mars with oceans. The view could represent a stage of terraforming (not an early Mars, since the ocean areas do not correspond to such hypotheses). The base map is from the USGS Flagstaff web site, with oceans added based on elevation data from a USGS map at Solar Views and a cloud map modified from one at Visible Earth. Map centered on 180° longitude.
The good ol' red planet may have been blue. New research in Nature suggests that massive oceans once covered a third of its surface. What is the evidence? Ragged, km high features on the planet's…
cmcclain | June 21, 2007
I am out to sea this week exploring deep-sea life on seamounts. A cruise in 2004 to the San Juan yielded this photo. Brisingid and basket stars, white trumpet and frilled sponges, and a bamboo coral (in the background) are living attached to a lava flow. Copyright MBARI
cmcclain | June 21, 2007So any wine is good, great wine is better, and great wine from the murky depths is the best.. Great wine aged on the ocean floor in perfect humidity, absence of UV rays, stable temperature of 9-12 C , and a ever so gentle massaging of the bottles by the currents and tides is the best.
cmcclain | June 21, 2007Our second day at sea was brought to close on much calmer seas. We again dove on Pioneer
Seamount, the northernmost station during our cruise and approximately parallel with San
Fran Cheezy. We continued to explore the volcanic cones. In contrast to the deeper
habitats on day 1 where corals dominated, the shallower regions we visited today were
characterized by dense sponge meadows. What corals did appear, they were stunted in
growth possibly related to the rather fragile volcanic substrate. We found more of the
new nudibranch, Tritonia sp., and addittionaly collected a Neptunea.
Today,…
cmcclain | June 20, 2007
if I look pretty. Whenever I travel, inevitably I come across a shop or two selling red coral jewelry. I know what the red coral means...pillaging of the oceans. My first thought however is who wheres this tacky stuff. Are there people who think this stuff is beautiful. Luckily, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species put the coral on a list of protected wildlife, meaning exporters will now have to prove that the coral was harvested without threatening the species' survival before they can sell it. Corralium is a slow growing deep-water species.
petnoyer | June 19, 2007
Bathymetric image of the Nazare Canyon off the coast of Portugal. Photo courtesy of the BBC.
The BBC has released a short news piece on an underwater expedition to the Nazare canyon off of Portugal expedition by their ROV ISIS, (a ROV talked about previously on DSN). One of their discoveries thus far is shark at over 3,600 meters depth, possibly setting a new depth record for sharks. Read the news article here.
cmcclain | June 19, 2007Most tales of the open sea begin with some classic line about the
seas being as rough as scorned lover or a furious ocean goddess
unleashing her fury. Both the scorned lover and furious goddess in
unison at sea welcomed our first full day out. Swells were at 20
providing a rough first night of sleep and rewarding me with multiple
skull contusions. The weather also endeavored to keep the ROV
Tiburon on deck but alas we succeeded in deploying. The newbies this
morning participated in the safety briefing with the long-standing
tradition of climbing into the survival suits which gives one the…
cmcclain | June 18, 2007Behind the scenes Kevin and I are making fun of Peter which now that he is out of town I will do online. See Peter is a bit of traitor toward our invertebrate cousins. You think somebody who studies corals would perhaps name them after some such species. But no...Peter named his computer after a fish. I am so disappointed. On the other hand Kevin, with a computer name after good ol' invertebrate phlya. Mine? Name after the world's largest and second largest invertebrates. I guess we know where loyalties lay. Now that I think about it...Peter was the one who pushed for Megavertebrate…
cmcclain | June 18, 2007 BP's Statistical Review of World Energy published last week boldly stated we have enough oil. Specifically, there is enough proven oil reserves to last us 40 years. The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre in London disagrees as you might expected from their name. They say we are doomed that peak oil will hit in 4 years and we will crash hard. Did I mention the part about global economic collapse. Apparently the problem is that the cheap and easy to extract stuff - has already come and gone in 2005. Even when you factor in the more difficult to extract heavy oil, deep sea reserves, polar regions…
cmcclain | June 18, 2007Chinese police recovered 21 pieces of porcelain from a fishing boat and another 117 pieces from others. When asked where the porcelain came from, the owner claimed that divers recovered the relics "by accident". Apparently, they just fell into their wetsuits. Happens to me all the time.
In actuality an illegal salvage operation was being conducted. Chinese archaeologists discovered the wreck, now referred to as South China Sea II, laden with Ming Dynasty porcelain in 20m of water. The ship is over 400 years old and probably struck a reef.
petnoyer | June 15, 2007Unbelievably, a 50 ton bowhead whale was discovered with a 19th century bomb lance fragment lodged between its neck and shoulder the bomb lance fragment was patented in 1879, making the whale between 115-130 years old according to researchers. See this amazing story from the American Cetacean Society at MSNBC here. Below is a graphic from that story.
I like this quote from John Bockstoce, an adjunct curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum:
It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place. He couldn't have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years…
cmcclain | June 15, 2007This blog is a considerable amount of hard work on our part requiring dedication and time. Sometimes people recognize this spreading the link love. Other times someone outright thieves our content. This time it is New York Articles that proudly claims "This site collects content from another sites".
If you're reading this post at New York Articles rather than at my actual site, you are partaking of a suboptimal experience on a poorly designed website from someone who doesn't #$%@ about the deep sea and oceans.
I'm not going to give you the URL for the lesser, because there is no value-added…
cmcclain | June 15, 2007
...glance at a tide chart.
Taking photographs of a wedding is a pleasant memory for new couples. But six happy pairs were left stranded for six hours on Wednesday while snapping away on reefs, 50 meters away from the bank of the Badaguan in Qingdao in Shandong province. The Hebei province couples and four photographers were too busy to notice the rising tide at Badaguan or "Eight Passes" seashore, the Peninsula Metropolitan News reported. A witness told the newspaper the couples looked excited when they first saw the tide was up and wanted to use the tidal waves as the…
cmcclain | June 15, 2007
From the 17th-27th I will b out to sea aboard the Western Flyer, technology and time permitting I will try to get post a couple entries here at DSN. You can read all about the cruise, check the updated logbook about daily activities, view pictures of the seafloor, and meet the people onboard online at MBARI's website. You can check the location of the ship in real time as well.
cmcclain | June 14, 2007
I am a really amateur photographer. I took a few classes a couple years ago and got the basics down. The kid in me, or maybe the scientist who works on body size, loves miniatures. Every since I heard of tilt-frame photography, I new I wanted to give it a try because of its surreal ability to turn landscapes into a tiny world. Here is a recent picture of Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey using this technique.
petnoyer | June 14, 2007
The video speaks for itself! Brought to your attention by Kevin Zelnio (Thanks Sue!). This was yesterday's footage from the Florida media outlets.
petnoyer | June 13, 2007
NOAA Great Lake Environmental Research Laboratory ships: Laurentian, Shenanon and Huron Explorer. In 1998, President Clinton enacted Executive Order 13101 for government agencies to reduce waste, recycle and use environmentally friendly and sustainable products including bio-products. Fast forward to 2007 and NOAA has heeded the call to reduce its environmental footprint by replacing petroleum-based fuels and lubricants with bio-based ones. In a press release from the NOAA website, Richard Spinrad, NOAA assistant administrator for Ocean and Atmospheric Research, commented that,
Our…