Saint Brendan of Clonfert is often referred to Brendan the Voyager. He is Irish monastic saint born in 484 in Ciarraighe Luachra, near the present city of Tralee, County Kerry and died in 577. Besides founding several monasteries across Ireland, Brendan made a legendary journey. The tale of begins with Brendan and 60 (other stories range from 15-150) pilgrims making their way to The Isle of the Blessed or Paradise across the Atlantic Ocean searching for the Americans around 512-530 AD. Brendan was originally motivated by stories of this strange and distant land from another Irish monk.…
Comic book artist Michael Turner passed on late last month at age 37. Although young, Turner already had an accomplished much including art for Witchblade, Fathom, Superman/Batman, and various covers for DC Comics and Marvel Comics. He was American born and southern boy heralding from Crossville, Tennessee. I mention him here because not only did he draw the covers for Submariner #1 and #5 (see the cover at Wikipedia), he created and owned the comic Fathom, which is just as cool as it sounds. The concept is a female superhero with water-based powers and of course since this is a graphic…
Sure you can do that deep scuba dive in 47 degree Fahrenheit water off the California coast. Sure you might get to see some kelp, marine life, and spectacular rock formations, but 47 is just 15 degrees from freezing. Why not dive indoors in a balmy 86 degrees? Ahh, but you wondering how you can get a deep dive in a 10 feet deep swimming pool? Make way for Nemo 33 in Uccle, Belgium, the deepest pool in the world. 108 feet to be exact with "two large flat-bottomed areas at depth levels of 5 m (16 ft) and 10 m (32 ft)". A circular pit allows you to visit Davy Jone's Locker. There is also…
From LiveLeak.com: Smugglers Chased and Rammed by Japanese Coastguard.
From National Geographic's new Translucent Creatures photo gallery: A hydromedusa spreads its luminescent tentacles in the Weddell Sea near Antarctica. Photograph by Ingo Arndt/Minden Pictures. This medusa is like totally coming at me like a spider monkey with those nunchuk tentacles. Meet some of its friends below the fold! A close-up of a bristleworm's head in Antarctica's Weddell Sea shows the tiny predator's trumpet-shaped mouth. Photograph by Ingo Arndt/Minden Pictures A transparent larval shrimp piggybacks on an equally see-through jellyfish in the waters around Hawaii. Photograph by…
Unlike people in the glamour states of Florida and California, folks here in Texas don't mind a little offshore oil development. We view the petroleum industry as two parts necessary evil and one part benevolent overlord. And, we feel this way for free. We don't get paid off like the lucky folks in Alaska. Our complacency is almost a kind of nostalgia. You might say Big Oil has it pretty easy here in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2001 there were 46 deep water rigs operating in the Gulf and the mood was one of cautious optimism. Now, thanks to escalating oil prices, the mood is more like a rich man'…
Being a deep-sea biologist is not all riding around in a wetsuit in a zodiac chasing down giant squid at 30 knots. Sometimes I have to pipette giant squid samples for DNA analysis. All that pipetting can give me a vicious thumb cramp. Wouldn't it be nice if someone could do it for me! Better yet a robot with lasers! Even better a robot with lasers that sings and is from the future! Who am I kidding? I will settle for a desktop automated machine with maybe a 90's boy band soundtrack. Luckily Eppendorf provides such a service (hat tip to CK) Pipetting all those well-plates, baby, sends…
From CNN.com:"Penguins may be the tuxedo-clad version of a canary in the coal mine, with generally ailing populations from a combination of global warming, ocean oil pollution, depleted fisheries, and tourism and development, according to a new scientific review paper. A University of Washington biologist detailed specific problems around the world with remote penguin populations, linking their decline to the overall health of southern oceans. "Now we're seeing effects (of human caused warming and pollution) in the most faraway places in the world," said conservation biologist P. Dee Boersma…
Following in the footsteps of Craig, I have a short piece published in the July/August issue of SEED Magazine for their Why I Do Science column. "On the Allure of the Ocean's Novelty" explores why I love doing the science I do. Just a hint, it doesn't have to do with the pay... Now go to your book stores and buy a copy (and skip immediately to page 34)!
Sea turtle biologists in the Gulf of California in northwest Mexico are having continued success with efforts to monitor and restore sea turtle populations in the region, according to DSN's field correspondent Wallace J Nichols. Three critically endangered hawksbill turtles Eretmochelys imbricata were tagged with satellite transmitters for the first time ever in this part of the world. The satellite tags will provide new and valuable information about sea turtle movements and habitat use. The information should aid in their management and protection. J's blog carries the full press release…
Dr. Maria Pia Miglietta, a postdoc in my lab at Penn State, just published a fascinating paper on a "silent invasion" happening around the world's oceans in the journal Biological Invasions. Those may look like tentacles, but in reality they are the nunchuks of rapid expansion of a stealthy marine invasion. Intonjutsu: Cheating Death In true ninja fashion the marine hydroid Turritopsis dohrnii disappears when the going gets tough. Instead of dying with honor, they "de-differentiate" into a cyst, settle to the seafloor and reform into a benthic polyp (see figure above). The polyps then…
The previous post reminded of this video we posted awhile back. From Youtube: This is the largest explosive burst that was observed at the Brimstone Pit during the Submarine Ring of Fire 2006 Exploration Jason dive J2-192. There were probably even larger bursts that could not be seen, at times when the eruption plume was so extensive and thick that we could not get near the vent. Video courtesy of Submarine Ring of Fire 2006 Exploration, NOAA Vents Program, NOAA-OE.
Can a volcano be explosive in the deep sea? What about violent? What about mildly aggravated? Historically, we've assumed the answer to be no. Explosive eruptions were thought to be absent at depths below the critical point for seawater around 3000m. Combine this with the lack of evidence for a pyroclastic deposit [rock materials formed by fragmentation as a result of volcanic action] below 3,000m. On top of that add the hypothesis that mid-ocean-ridge basalts do not possess the volatility to produce impressive eruptions at high pressures. A group of researchers report this week in…
Please note that the following post is riddled with sarcasm. Those whose delicate nature cannot handle such are strongly encouraged to not read this post. At DSN we seem to have a track record for stirring the pot when it comes to Texas T. Early on, I did this post which generated some lovely comments. Recently, Kevin kicked off the Black Gold trifecta with his post on the Republican plan, which seems like a very liberal use of the word plan, to cure all of our oil problems. Well researched and insightful, it didn't really generate the heated debate Peter and I have come to expect from…
Hat Tip to Matt for pointing us to this post at Ectoplasmosis. Two parts beautiful and three parts disturbing you're unlikely to forget this video for the rest of the day. It somehow seems a fitting video following my previous post. It tells the story of one man's love for the giant squid...which is still illegal in California.
Craig meet Fate...Fate meet Craig...Fate you can now proceed to slap Craig in the face. In my 2 year reign tenure at MBARI, I have literally spent a total of two months at sea off the central California coast...a day here, a week there. But of course I haven't seen a giant squid nor did I expect to. Sightings of the elusive deep-sea denizen are rare off the California coast, only a handful in the last 100 or so years. Then yesterday I get news that the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation collected a giant squid floating about 20 miles off the coast of Santa Cruz. Well isn't that just freakin…
The following polychaete worm, probably a Nereid, was found in our deep sea mussel tanks. Often times we will collect a bunch of mussels in a scoop which results in gathering some other rare deep sea creatures and their larvae. Our last collection of the mussel Bathymodiolus childressi from the Gulf of Mexico was in Fall of 2004, from a depth around 600 meters. This worm has been living in our aquaria for at least 4 years. One interesting point is that these mussels have methanotrophic ("methane feeding") bacteria in their gills. We only feed the aquaria methane, which is bubbled into…
That is the common theme in marine biology. Clara Moskowitz has an article up at LiveScience describing how scientists are struggling to keep up with marine life discoveries. Here is a short snippet:"Scientists figure there are at least 1 million species of marine organisms on Earth. Of these, only about 230,000 are known to science now, and some of those have more than one name. To keep them all straight, 55 researchers from 17 countries are working on a new list, the ultimate tally of sea creatures great and small. The list is about half done, the team announced today. So far, the…
Surfrider Foundation's online newsletter Soup is reporting new rules from the National Marine Fisheries Service that federal shark fisheries in the Atlantic ocean and Gulf of Mexico will need to bring shark fins in to port with the carcass of the animal attached. Environmental News Service details the story here. It's a grim ruling, but should help to curb the practice of cutting fins from living sharks and then returning the animals directly to sea. Hopefully, the increased load to fishing vessels will reduce profitability. Any ocean lover who has seen video of the bleeding and sinking…