cmcclain | March 29, 2007An expedition to the 9N Overlapping Spreading Center that is going on right now! You can catch daily dispatches from Laura Preston, an educator from UNH/Salem High School in New Hampshire.
For a marine geologist, this sonar system helps us realize a fantasy - pulling the plug on the ocean and draining the water out so we can see the seafloor features.
cmcclain | March 29, 2007
How to video on Giant Squid preparation from the British Natural History Museum. This is the same individual I had the pleasure to visit last year. Click on either image to view a larger version.
photos: Craig R. McClain (2006)
cmcclain | March 27, 2007
Alviniconcha hessleri (Mollusca: Mesogastropoda: Provannidae)
When you think of hydrothermal vents, what comes to mind first? Is it the gushing black smoke out of a chimney? Perhaps you envision the enormous tubeworms with their red velvety plumes sticking out of their white tubes. Some may even be familiar with the dense swarms of blind shrimp. What may not come to mind are big hairy snails!
Description Alviniconcha hessleri was discovered and described almost 20 years ago (7) and is a mesogastropod in the family Provannidae (14). It is named both after the submersible Alvin ("Alvin's…
petnoyer | March 27, 2007Did you ever want to write a letter to the Pope, but you didn't know what to say? Well, here's your chance to write that letter. Sea turtle advocates did all the work for you, and they vastly improved your only likely chance of an audience. Your voice will be one of thousands calling upon His Excellency to stop the slaughter of our oceangoing innocents during the Lenten season. The Baja California Sur environmental group ProPeninsula is engaged in a letter writing campaign to His Excellency Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican asking him to remind Catholics everywhere that sea turtles are not…
cmcclain | March 26, 2007Sunday night, cocktail in hand, I prepared myself for an anticipated 3 hours of glorious nature footage. The flash website, the advertisement at the top of this very webpage, and Peter Etnoyer managed to bolster my fervor for Planet Earth. Less than a year ago, at the Deep-Sea Biology Symposium, BBC representatives revealed a few of the excerpts from the series-a shark engulfing a sea lion, ispods swarming a food fall, and birds of paradise in stunning displays of mating ritual. Three hours later, I added this to my ongoing list of anticlimactic experiences. At least the cocktail(s) were…
petnoyer | March 25, 2007 My understanding of what makes a good children's book changed dramatically about 15 months ago, when my baby daughter Clara Lynn was born. Before that time, I thought a good children's library would be a mix of Dr. Seuss, Dick and Jane, Sesame Street, and Winnie the Pooh. These were the stories I grew up with in the Seventies. I knew to beware of hypnotic modern characters like Barney and Elmo who could steal your child's mind and win their affections. I pictured myself reading the Hobbit from a rocking chair at nighttime, while my daughter stared lovingly from under a cozy blanket. All that…
cmcclain | March 24, 2007 In case you missed Peter and I discussing this program, here is another reminder. DEEP OCEAN AIRS TOMORROW NIGHT ON THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL. The series is from the BBC. Last year at a deep-sea meeting a BBC representative presented some of the video. Even in its unformatted state, it was truly marvelous. As I recall, a segment shows Giant Isopods swarming a food fall. There will also be excellent footage of coral/sponge meadows on Davidson Seamount here off the California coast. Having seen some of this video and diving on the seamount with ROV's, I can say you will not want to mist this.…
cmcclain | March 23, 2007Today's Saipan Tribune reports on the growing support among Pacific Islands to ban bottom trawling. Palau President Remengassau has been the lead on rallying support for such measures.
During the {Pacific Islands Executive Chief] summit, Remengasau reported that the Pacific Islands Forum and other chief executives at previous meetings had agreed, within the limitations of their political status, to support a temporary ban on deep see trawling. They had also pledged to take a precautionary approach until measures are in place to effectively manage and regulate this damaging practice.
cmcclain | March 23, 2007Both Pictures from Igenious.org.uk
James Six (1731-1793) retired early from business to devote himself to the natural sciences. He is best known for the invention of the self-registering thermometer, first designed in 1780, which recorded the maximum and minimum temperatures reached. It was the most widely used thermometer for taking deep-sea temperatures until 1870. The thermometer's susceptibility to pressure was addressed in 1869 by Dr W A Miller (1817-1870), then Vice-President of the Royal Society. Miller's adaptation of Six's design was made by the instrument maker L P Casella (…
petnoyer | March 22, 2007This Sunday (March 25) the Discovery Channel will be broadcasting the series Planet Earth at 8pm ET/PT. Footage of Davidson Seamount will be broadcast in the Deep Ocean episode at 10pm ET/PT. Expect to see some gorgeous gorgonians and some handsome fly-trap anemones.
Discovery Channel put together a very slick flash website for the occaission, complete with a Google Earth tour, videos, and online games.
Need we ask how this will compare to the incredible Blue Planet series five years ago?
cmcclain | March 21, 2007The University of Chicago Press just launched a Flash Website, complete with gallery, for The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss by Claire Nouvian. Fantastic site with some of the same pictures as in the book.
cmcclain | March 21, 2007
Perspective view of East Pacific Rise and the seismic velocity structure of the underlying mantle. Surprisingly, regions of magma storage in the mantle (shown as orange and red colors) are in many places not centered beneath the plate plate boundary. Courtesy Douglas Toomey
[Note from Craig: I have asked Kevin Zelnio, a graduate student with preeminent deep-sea biologist Chuck Fisher, to guest post. I am excited by the addition of Kevin as this should add breadth to DSN in the realm of chemosynthetic communities.]
Current thought about the formation of vents is that mantle upwells…
cmcclain | March 21, 2007 Perhaps unsurprisingly DSN's pick for Science Bracket Smackdown, Team Invertebrate demolished 9th seeded Surgeons with a final score of 158-37. Through an amazing dorsal heart defense initiated by the arthropods the Invertebrates quickly took an early lead. The open circulatory offense also proved difficult to stop. Ronald Plasty for the Surgeons stated after the game, "What can I say we were expecting a closed system and ultimately that beat us." The colossal squid did not return for the second round game. In the lockeroom DSN learned that a tentacle strain in the fourth quarter was still…
cmcclain | March 20, 2007
Coming into the Spring Science Bracket Showdown, the pundits pegged the Invertebrates as the most powerful in the field. Coach Bufo when asked about Team Vertebrates chances stated "We're a powerhouse dominated by charismatic megafauna! We're unstoppable!" But stop them is exactly what top seeded Invertebrates did in the first round. "I thought the lack backbone would help us, but we were overwhelmed by their numbers."noted Bufo after the game. In a surprising appearance by the rarely seen colossal squid, who dished out nine assists, the Invertebrates handled tentacled the Vertebrate…
petnoyer | March 20, 2007Here's a short list of 21 things you can do with a deep sea coral.
1.Raise awareness of deep-sea habitats
2.Display in a museum (e.g. Smithsonian NMNH)
3.Make a GIS database (Etnoyer and Morgan 2003, 2005)
4.Make photographs for books and pamphlets (Glover and Earle 2004)
5.Make jewelry
6.Investigate branching patterns (Sanchez et al 2004)
7.Identify to species level
8.Perform SEM microphotography
9.Population genetics (Baco-Taylor, 2005)
10.Global biogeography (Cairns, in press)
11.Estimate biomass in-situ (Belko, 2004)
12.Define protein structure (Ehrlich et al 2006)
13.Study reproduction (…
cmcclain | March 19, 2007
You can now see a life-size whale on the world wide web. That's not a typo either!
cmcclain | March 19, 2007So I know what you are asking? Craig, when I am out collecting deep-sea corals what protocols should I use? Your in luck! A considerable amount of Peter's time has been to compile Deep Sea Coral Collection protocols which is "designed to build international capacity to document deep-sea coral diversity." The document represents Peter's hard work and will no doubt lead to increase in our knowledge of deep-sea corals through a standardization of procedures. You can download the document for free!
Peter was also the topic d'jour at CenSeam (Census of Marine Life: Seamounts). He was…
cmcclain | March 19, 2007You may notice the new button on the sidebar that looks like this...
I posted last week on this great organization and will continue to leave the button on the side bar. In the coming weeks I will announce a campaign in which if certain donation levels are met, I will will reward readers with a surprise that may or may not encompass public acts of humiliation or special posts.
cmcclain | March 18, 2007
The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss by Claire Nouvian is perhaps the most stunning book to grace this planet. Such praise seems superfluous until one views the cover-to-cover photographs of stunning deep-sea creatures that form the core of this hardback. The volume is 12x10 inches and the high-resolution photographs on superb glossy paper are equally large. Many of the photographs extend across adjacent pages. The images cover pelagic, benthic, vent, seep, whale fall, invertebrate, and vertebrate organisms. The reader will be hard pressed to find a neglected group. …
cmcclain | March 16, 2007
A Scottish Sea Spider without kilt (from the Metro.co.uk) from the Rockall Trough off NW Scotland.