cmcclain | December 19, 2006
In the first wave attack ordered by the Squid Overlords, deep-sea microbes will invade the air. As you already know the second wave attack will be flesh eating sponges. Image from Octopus Pulp
cmcclain | December 19, 2006Unlike other marine environments, the threats to the deep sea and it species are relatively new. Only recently has it been both economically and technologically feasible to exploit this environment. This means we have the unique opportunity to instigate conservation policy at the beginning, before drastic damage has been done, instead of trying to restore damaged habitats. Although action needs to be quick.
Reuters reports this...
Deep-sea fishing trawlers are bulldozing 4,500 year-old cold water coral reefs off western Ireland, a British marine biologist said on Monday. Dr Jason Hall-…
cmcclain | December 18, 2006I couldn't resist the invitation from PZ, Afarensis, and John. I actually look much better in an elf costume than this. Don't ask.
cmcclain | December 18, 2006Joshua Rosenau over at Thoughts from Kansas reminded me about the recent reauthorizing and updating of the MSA. What's this mean for the deep sea?
From Oceana...
The legislation significantly improves the protection of deep-sea corals and sponges from bottom trawling and other destructive fishing gear. Fisheries management councils now have the authority to close areas to protect deep sea corals without first proving that the areas are Essential Fish Habitat, a very difficult process. Also, scientist will now have a greater role in setting allowable catch limits in all US fisheries. Other…
cmcclain | December 18, 2006American supermarket chain Whole Foods Market has decided to stop marketing Icelandic products because of Iceland resuming commercial whaling.
cmcclain | December 18, 2006You ask and we deliver! And if you have ever had any doubt we are the baddest blog ever, we have carnivorous sponge video! Bolstered by a commenter about the mechansism of flesh eating sponges, I asked Dr. Vacelet to give some more insight into this process.
I was pointed to Vacelet & Duport (2004) Prey capture and digestion in the carnivorous sponge Asbestopluma hypogea (Porifera: Demospongiae). Zoomorphology 123: 179-190). Dr. Vacelet was also kind enough to provide this description.
The prey, mostly small crustaceans and other invertebrates provided with setae or thin appendages, is…
cmcclain | December 18, 2006 Click here if you want to know why this is the weirdest Christmas present ever.
petnoyer | December 18, 2006Jack Well, Great White, Thunder Horse, Tobago, and Silvertip. These are the names of the next frontier in oil exploration. Petroleum engineers call them "ultradeep discoveries", and they are happening here and now in the Gulf of Mexico. Together, these deep reservoirs promise to quench the American thirst for oil for up to ... five years. Read the New York Times story here.
"Five years?" you say, "Is that all?" Let's put it in perspective. The United States consumes about 20 million barrels a day. The current estimate for Gulf of Mexico reserves is 40 billion barrels of oil. The mean…
cmcclain | December 18, 2006A team under the Deep Atlantic Stepping Stones project possibly has unofficially discovered a new species of deep-sea eel. According to the explorers, numerous underwater sea mountains were also discovered, separated from each other by deep water and unexpectedly shaped like squares and triangles rather than cones. The highest seamount recorded by the expedition was 14,100 feet, and was 16,400 feet below the surface. The team plans to name the seamounts after science luminaries. The team members also report they have discovered a significant piece of the reproductive puzzle of deep-sea dumbo…
cmcclain | December 17, 2006What country as an American would you prefer to take residence in, Iran or Iceland? Sure you said Iceland...with high literacy rates and polar hotties there may even be a science fiction reading honey*. But maybe you should go with Iran.
A recent article in the Mehr News titled Bottom trawl, most destructive form of fishing must be abandoned makes these comments...
Referring to bottom trawl fishing [an Iranian expert} said the method must be abandoned because it leads to the extinction of many species of maritime creatures. Ninety-five percent of the material caught in deep sea bottom…
cmcclain | December 17, 2006
It had been assumed for a century before that the deep-sea fauna was depauperate, and prior to then that the great depths were essentially sterile. These ideas were largely a carry over from Edward Forbes in the late 1800's, who proposed the azoic hypothesis for the deep sea. Interestingly, his idea was largely based on samples from the Aegean Sea now known to have relatively low densities of organisms compared to other deep-sea areas. The lack of deep-sea life was overturned by several later reports of deep-sea species attached to sounding lines and the dredging cruises of the H.M.S.…
cmcclain | December 16, 2006Although the earliest interest and sampling in the deep sea occurred in the late 1800's, a majority of deep-sea exploration did not occur until after the 1960's. The current amount of sampling and exploration of this great environment is without precedent. Despite this, new species and new habitats are constantly being found (e.g. Roxanne...You Don't Have to Put on the Red Light!). Hydrothermal vents were not discovered until 1976. So how much of the deep sea has actually been explored or sampled? This is indeed a tough question to answer. To derive an exact answer we would have to…
cmcclain | December 15, 2006The World Conservation Union as released Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Deep Waters and High Seas and you can download your own copy! Excellent information and pictures. Print them up and give them as presents for the holidays. Sure everyone for the next year will talk about how much a geek you are but on the upside your LIVING THE CAUSE. Desea vivo la revolucion profunda del mar!
cmcclain | December 15, 2006
I like maps...a lot. I get excited about GIS and the monthly map insert in National Geographic. A great map awakens the explorer in me. So when I saw the new map from CSIRO, I was torn.
The map is brilliant, maybe too brilliant. The map shows the locations of offshore minerals near Australia. Copper, gold, silver, tin, topaz, tungsten, coal, bauxite...and diamonds. Why the recent interest in mining by India, Australia, Canada, and others. Mineral prices are high. The news is that the metal in a penny and a nickel are worth more than $0.01 and $0.05 respectively. The release of this…
cmcclain | December 15, 2006India has developed devices to search the depths of the ocean - to as deep as over 5,000 meters (5 km)
Yeah!...
for economic exploration, joining a league of nations that are developing such capability to exploit ocean wealth.
Booo!
'Once fully tested, we will be able to demonstrate and study what is available at depths of 5,000 metres and more. This will help us know how the mineral wealth can be exploited,' said Dr M.A. Atmanand, project director at NIOT.
Exactly what we need another Nautilus!
In an attempt to replace this with something better out of India I differ to Mujhse Dosti Karoge!
cmcclain | December 15, 2006
It is well known that ~70% of the earth's surface is covered by water. Of this, 90% lies beyond the continental shelf and is greater than 200m with 79% is greater than 1000m. However, scientist now know that the deep sea comprises a variety of habitats such as methane seeps, seamounts, hydrothermal vents, etc. (I will discuss these different habitats in more detail in a later 25 Things You Should Know About the Deep Sea). So this idea can be restated to be more precise. The largest habitat on earth by volume is deep-water pelagic systems or by surface area the soft-bottom benthos (mud,…
cmcclain | December 14, 2006Everyone is going on about being a crazy historical figure but I want to be a pirate!
What kind of pirate am I? You decide!You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!Brought to you by Rum and Monkey
cmcclain | December 14, 2006[The Archaen] was collected at Axial Volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge off the coast of Washington and Oregon. Fixing nitrogen at 92 C [198F] smashes the previous record by 28 C [82F], a record held by Methanothermococcus thermolithotrophicus, an archaeon that was isolated from geothermally heated sand near an Italian beach and fixes nitrogen at temperatures up to 64 C [116 F].
The critter is also from close to the good ol' U S of A as opposed to eurotrash from an Italian beach. Story from Newswise.
cmcclain | December 14, 2006Sure there is the destruction of marine habitats issue. Or maybe you prefer not to eat fish from the deep because they are oily, nasty, poop bottom feeders. Those are two fantastic reasons, but there is a third-child labor.
But many poor Pakistani families rely on incomes from their children to get by. UNICEF estimates there are 3.6 million working boys and girls under age 14 in Pakistan, mostly engaged in carpet-weaving, brick-making, agriculture and deep-sea fishing.
Luckily, the people at the U.N. don't think that a child's hands provide a certain je ne sais quoi to the abyssal fish…
cmcclain | December 14, 2006The Scientist has a great write up about deep-sea biologists Victoria Orphan and Shana Goffredi.
Victoria Orphan wanted to be a marine biologist ever since kindergarten. She even wrote it down in a Dr. Seuss book called My Book About Me. It still sits in her childhood bedroom, which she had painted to resemble a deep-sea scene.
Shana and Victoria's research centers on symbioses and speaks to the origin of multicelluarity. Their published work has been a cornerstone to a developed undertanding of methane seep and hydrothermal vent communities