“Hydrogen sulfide erupted along the coast of Namibia in mid-March 2010. Pale-hued waters along the shore hinted at gaseous rumblings as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and captured this true-color image on March 13, 2010.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
“The Census of Marine Life is a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations engaged in a 10-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abudance of life in the global ocean.” Check out their photo gallery of some of the world’s most fascinating sea creatures.
A company building a natural gas pipeline on the floor of the Baltic Sea discovered a dozen sunken ships that are thought to be between 300 and 400 years old.
Since very small organisms like plankton form the base of the ocean’s food chain, anything that affects them will impact most marine life. Microscopic aquatic fossils are being used to compile latitudinal details on the mass extinction events of 65 MYA.
What will happen if the human species just can’t stop polluting the air? One backup plan to save the atmosphere is geoengineering the oceans, which this article discusses.
A new technology will change the way we explore the oceans. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has developed wireless video communication underwater at a speed close to real time. This will be very useful with ROVs and AUVs (remotely operated, and autonomous underwater, vehicles).
A cruise ship off the coast of Spain was hit by three enormous waves about 26 feet high. The impacts caused extensive damage on the ship, injured many passengers and killed two.
You might not expect to find lots of barnacles or other sea creatures clinging to a vertical surface in a cold, rapidly moving water current. Surprisingly, crustaceans can not only tolerate this environment, but are actually flourishing in the deep, upwelling waters of Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands.
You’ve heard about the garbage patch the size of Texas floating in the Pacific. There is a garbage patch in the Atlantic Ocean, as well; plastic trash is gathering off the U.S. coast, in waters along Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
Part of the Mertz Glacier and the B9B iceberg are now floating in the Antarctic, after the iceberg collided with the glacier in February and separated a chunk of it from the continent. How will these ice masses affect ocean circulation? National Geographic has before and after images of the iceberg collision, along with an illustration of ocean currents.
The Pacific Tsunami Center has issued the following warning for the State of Hawaii in response to the 8.8 M earthquake that occurred this morning in Chile.
“A TSUNAMI HAS BEEN GENERATED THAT COULD CAUSE DAMAGE ALONG COASTLINES OF ALL ISLANDS IN THE STATE OF HAWAII. URGENT ACTION SHOULD BE TAKEN TO PROTECT LIVES AND PROPERTY.
A TSUNAMI IS A SERIES OF LONG OCEAN WAVES. EACH INDIVIDUAL WAVE CREST CAN LAST 5 TO 15 MINUTES OR MORE AND EXTENSIVELY FLOOD COASTAL AREAS. THE DANGER CAN CONTINUE FOR MANY HOURS AFTER THE INITIAL WAVE AS SUBSEQUENT WAVES ARRIVE. TSUNAMI WAVE HEIGHTS CANNOT BE PREDICTED AND THE FIRST WAVE MAY NOT BE THE LARGEST. TSUNAMI WAVES EFFICIENTLY WRAP AROUND ISLANDS. ALL SHORES ARE AT RISK NO MATTER WHICH DIRECTION THEY FACE. THE TROUGH OF A TSUNAMI WAVE MAY TEMPORARILY EXPOSE THE SEAFLOOR BUT THE AREA WILL QUICKLY FLOOD AGAIN. EXTREMELY STRONG AND UNUSUAL NEARSHORE CURRENTS CAN ACCOMPANY A TSUNAMI. DEBRIS PICKED UP AND CARRIED BY A TSUNAMI AMPLIFIES ITS DESTRUCTIVE POWER. SIMULTANEOUS HIGH TIDES OR HIGH SURF CAN SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE THE TSUNAMI HAZARD.”
“The chemical composition of our oceans is not constant but has varied significantly over geological time. In a study published in the February 26, 2010 edition of Science, researchers describe a novel method for reconstructing past ocean chemistry using calcium carbonate veins that precipitate from seawater-derived fluids in rocks beneath the seafloor.”
Two groups of people from the Catlin Arctic Survey will be collecting water samples to measure Arctic Ocean acidification. They will also be studying how easily carbon dioxide can travel through sea ice, and the effect of CO2 on marine organisms.
Doctoral student Andrew McDonnell went to the Palmer U.S. Research Station in 2009 to analyze marine snow and the polar carbon cycle. In this article, he shares some thoughts about his memorable trip to Antarctica.
Chemosynthetic organisms, including Osedax (aka “zombie”) worms, have been found thriving in a volcanic crater on the East Scotia Ridge of the Southern Ocean. The worms are living in a microenvironment produced by a dead whale.
There are creatures living in even the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean – like the foraminifera that populate the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. Core samples taken by the KAIKO ROV contain foraminiferan tests made with material from coccoliths. This suggests that the seafloor organisms make their shells using debris from surface waters.
Related article: Read about the first – and only – manned voyage to the deepest part of the ocean, in the Bathyscaphe Trieste sea vessel.
The Doushantuo fossil beds in China have provided some clues about the geochemical complexities of the early ocean. It is possible that in the Ediacaran Period, oceans became sulfidic and then ferruginous at greater depths.
Could life on Earth have been sparked in deep-sea hydrothermal vents? A paper by Dr. Nick Lane, published in BioEssays, details why this is plausible with chemiosmosis.
A recent computer model by NOAA-funded researchers indicates that the 1918-1919 El Niño was one of the strongest of the 20th Century. It has been linked to extreme weather events and the influenza pandemic of 1918 that killed over 25 million people. (NOAA technical report.)
The deepest hole drilled on a single expedition in the history of scientific ocean drilling was completed off the coast of New Zealand at a depth of 1927 meters.
The Mainichi Daily News has a photograph showing ash and steam emerging from the ocean’s surface above the vent of Fukutokuoka no Ba Volcano which erupted yesterday near Iwo Jima.
The SeaKeeper 1000 is a device that gathers data on weather conditions, water pH, oxygen levels, and more, from the hulls of superyachts around the world. Each machine can take over 14,000 readings daily, which are relayed to the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and WMO (World Meteorological Organization).
This page links to six research papers recently published by AGU, on the following subjects:
*First study to show that seismic imaging detects ocean’s internal tides
*Ice is “rotten” in the Beaufort Sea
*Global warming increases flood risk in mountain areas
*Worldwide nitrogen deficit constrains carbon dioxide uptake by plants
*Upper atmosphere influences weather near Earth’s surface
*New finding on key element of Earth’s lower mantle
The abstracts can be viewed online, and copies of the papers can be ordered or downloaded from the website.
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Hobart King
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