petnoyer | May 31, 2007 While we wait for Craig and the crew to reboot the MBARI ROV, I should note the NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration just recently posted expedition logs for the Olympic Coast 2006 Exploration for Deep-Sea Coral Communities off the coast of Washington State.
The homepage for the expedition is here at NOAA-OE. The same expedition is presented in a somewhat different format, with more background material and more pictures, here at the National Marine Sanctuary website.
This Olympic Coast cruise was important for several reasons: 1) Large aggregations of the deep scleractinian Lophelia pertusa…
cmcclain | May 30, 2007 I perhaps spoke too soon and in doing so invited Murphy's wrath.
We completed deployment of the respirometer and accomplished 3/4 of the video transects we planned. During our bottom time we saw high densities of flat fish, asteroids, and the jellyfish Benthocodon. We also spotted a rather large pom-pom anemone. The squid Histoteuthis was also seen and at one point inked the respirometer.
But then there was problem, the ROV went dead in the water, no power and no video feed to the surface. We lost contact with the ROV. Houston we have problem! At this time we are retrieving the dead ROV…
cmcclain | May 30, 2007Sometimes you just luck out. Today so far is one of those days. The bay is like glass and steaming out to the site has been smooth. We just arrived on station (8:30am) and deployed the ROV. First operation is to deploy the benthic respirometer. Wish us luck!
cmcclain | May 30, 2007 It is very early in the morning. Yes I know its only a little after 7am but I really am not a morning person. Like most mornings leaving the dock in Moss Landing it is foggy and relatively cold. I'm not whining its just cold for a southern boy. I will be on the Pt. Lobos today, affectionately referred to by some as the Pt. Puke for its high draft and odd roll but I love her anyway. We will be using the ROV Ventana to visit the ocean floor at approximately 850m.
We have an approximate 2 hour steam and subsequent 1-2 hour wait for the Ventana to reach our seafloor sampling site in…
cmcclain | May 29, 2007Tomorrow, I will be blogging from sunny Monterey Bay. Actually, I will be blogging from foggy Monterey Bay but it will still be outrageous. You can tune in here at 7:00 am (Pacific Time) tomorrow for the first post. Hopefully, halfway through the day the antenna will be working and I will beam back to shore my second post. I will check back later tomorrow evening to answer in questions (posted in the comments). You can catch a live updated video from the deck of the ship and current position throughout the day. This is a test run for an even more amazing blog session coming in June!
cmcclain | May 29, 2007
Yesterday in Part I, I noted that a Spanish newspaper published a picture allegedly from a port employee showing a coin with a bust of King Charles III, ruler of Spain in the 18th century, suggesting the Black Swan was indeed Spanish. Greg Stemm, co-founder of Odysssey Marine Exploration stated the coin featuring Charles pictured in the papers is not from the wreck. Yesterday Roy stated that the picture in the paper was from the Franklin Mint Website (above). The newly developed Merchant Royal Shipwreck Blog (interesting indeed) notes that the picture below is the picture from the…
cmcclain | May 28, 2007 Last week I reported on the potential $500 million dollar haul of coins pulled by Odyssey Marine Exploration of a wreck referred to the "Black Swan". Several papers are reporting on the possible identity of the wreck and the potential ownership of the wreck by Spain. Spain has claimed that the wreck is both in Spain's territorial waters and of Spanish origin. Current speculation places the wreck either 40 miles off the coast of Cornwall in southwestern England, opposite Spain's northwestern coastline, or in the Strait of Gibraltar.
A Spanish newspaper boldly stated the "Black Swan" was…
cmcclain | May 28, 2007 Kathleen Hardy from the Darling Marine Center will be blogging from sea aboard the R/V Thompson. The month long cruise will take place in the North Pacific and Kathleen provides an excellent mix of the at sea experience and science tales. The post titles are imaginative and should peak your interests enough to head over. You can even track the cruise progress here.
Cruise Log ~ May 17: Gatorade and Pepto, Whales, and the Queen Charlotte Islands
Cruise Log ~ May 23: FIRE! Never Trust a Scientist with a Flare Gun
Cruise Log ~ May 25: Dall's Porpoises; Charlie Trick, Superhero Scientist…
petnoyer | May 25, 2007
There's a whole new revenue stream on the horizon. Livescience reports that Japanese scientists in the AMOEBA (Advanced Multiple Organized Experimental Basin), project have learned to write on water.
The image above shows the letter S formed by standing waves in a custom engineered water tank designed to generate Japanese characters and letters from the Roman alphabet.
This in one of four marine oriented Weird Science Stories of the Year.
Check 'em out here
cmcclain | May 23, 2007
You may be asking yourself how these two fit together. I would like to say something like "every box of Cheerios contains a model Alvin in it." That would be great but totally fictional. The connection is actually more interesting and involves Bud Froehlich.
You may have heard of a little submersible called Trieste that set a depth record in 1960. The mechanical arm on it was built by Harold "Bud" Froehlich an engineer at General Mills who sadly passed away this week. Bud after the Trieste dive started circulating plans for a replacement, the Seapup. Meanwhile on the east coast talk…
petnoyer | May 22, 2007Wood's Hole researchers in the Eddies Dynamics, Mixing, Export, and Species composition (EDDIES) project confirmed that ocean productivity is enhanced by upwelling eddies in the oligotropic Sargasso Sea. The slowly swirling water masses were teeming with diatoms in concentrations 10,000 to 100,000 times the norm, among the highest ever observed in the Sargasso Sea. They compare these features to "oases in the desert".
The researchers employed a combination of remote sensing, video plankton recorders, ocean drifters, tracers and traditional measurements of water properties and current speeds…
cmcclain | May 22, 2007
For some reason the work of Deanna Molinaro just speaks to me. I wonder what it could be?
cmcclain | May 22, 2007And a virgin shall be with pup, and shall bring forth a hammerhead, and they shall call his name Elasmobranch which being interpreted is, to beat the gill...
Three female hammerheads in a tank in Nebraska and no males in site for three years. Poof! A pup is born. Realizing that the important part is really the first discovery of asexual reproduction in sharks, I cannot get over the idea that these poor females are stuck in Nebraska and getting no sex.
petnoyer | May 22, 2007The New York Times posts a stunning selection of images in their review of Claire Nouvian's "The Deep". Craig ran a book blurb on the blog back in March.
The collection of images definitely raises deep-sea photography to a new level. The quality of light and posture of the photos is reminiscent of some great painters (e.g. Francis Bacon) and art house photographers. The text features essays by top notch marine biologists Laurence Madin and Craig Young.
Clear the coffee table, folks. This one's a keeper.
petnoyer | May 21, 2007
Hydrothermal vents have given us many things, including new autotrophic paradigms, new species, a new appreciation for seafloor spreading centers, some cool websites and a best-ever IMAX movie . But the fact that seafloor massive sulfides can precipitate a king's ransom in gold, silver, copper, and zinc was an unexpected boost to the cauldron-like charisma of hydrothermal vent ecosystems.
Deep Sea News first started reporting on Vancouver based company Nautilus Minerals' intention to mine extinct hydrothermal vents in Papua New Guinea back in November of 2005. Big-time scientific weeklies…
cmcclain | May 21, 2007 From Yahoo News...
An Indonesian fisherman hooked a rare coelacanth...and briefly kept the "living fossil" alive in a quarantined pool. Justinus Lahama caught the four-foot, 110-pound fish early Saturday off Sulawesi island near Bunaken National Marine Park, which has some of the highest marine biodiversity in the world. The fish died 17 hours later, an extraordinary survival time, marine biologist Lucky Lumingas said Sunday. "The fish should have died within two hours because this species only lives in deep, cold-sea environment," he said.
cmcclain | May 20, 2007 Via Neatorama..
Jellyfish Lake is an isolated saltwater lake in the Pacific island of Palau. In the geologic past it was tied to the ocean acquring jellyfish. These jellyfish have become an isolated population lossing thier nematocysts (stinging cells). They thrive in the lake at high number due to the lack of predators. [from Rick Macpherson] The jellies have acquired algal endosymbionts in their tissue (same genus as the zooxanthellae in coral)... during the day, the jellies rise to the surface in masses and track along the surface of the lake as the earth rotates... at…
cmcclain | May 18, 2007If marine biologist are the rock stars of science then marine archaeologists may be the millionaires.
Deep-sea explorers said Friday they have mined what could be the richest shipwreck treasure in history, bringing home 17 tons of colonial-era silver and gold coins from an undisclosed site in the Atlantic Ocean. Estimated value: $500 million.
In this photo provided by Odyssey Marine Exploration, Odyssey co-founder Greg Stemm, left, examines coins recovered from the "Black Swan" shipwreck with an unidentified member of the conservation team Thursday, May 17, 2007, at an undisclosed…
cmcclain | May 17, 2007
These beautiful illustrations are from the Challenger Reports available online. The first is of the very large, deep water, pycnogonid sea spider, Colossendeis gigas. The second (below the fold) contains Octopus levis and Octopus bermudensis both new species described on the expedition. The last contains at center a gastropod from the genus Xenophora that glues other shells onto its own shell as it is produced. Around the edge are various species from the genus Natica.
cmcclain | May 17, 2007 David over at the World's Fair poses
1. Can you show us your coffee cup?
2. Can you comment on it? Do you think it reflects on your personality?
3. Do you have any interesting anecdotes resulting from coffee cup commentary?
4. Can you try to get others to comment on it?
Well judge for yourself...I will say that I purchased it at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute after my first research cruise and my first dive in a submersible (the one on the mug). Needlessly to say I am a bit sentimental and coffee tastes o' the so much sweeter out of it.