A submarine volcanic eruption at Monowai Seamount added 8.75 million cubic meters of rock in just five days. The volcano is located in the Pacific Ocean northeast of New Zealand at the southern end of the Tonga Ridge near Kermadec volcanoes.
Science on MSNBC.com has an article that explains some of the impacts of the 2010 Magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck off the cost of Chile. The earthquake made significant changes to the intertidal environment.
“Perched atop the sheer coastal cliffs of Ireland’s Aran Islands, ridges of giant boulders have puzzled geologists for years. What forces could have torn these rocks from the cliff edges high above sea level and deposited them far inland?” Quoted from The University of Chicago Press media release.
“The Omo Delta, at the north end of Lake Turkana, a lake now located mainly in Kenya. Left: February 1, 1973. Right: January 24, 2005 to February 12, 2006. In 1973, the delta was contained entirely within the boundaries of Ethiopia. By 2005-2006, the southernmost point of the delta had moved roughly 12 kilometers (7 miles) to the south, and had crossed the Ethiopia-Kenya border.” Quoted from the NASA image release.
Warm ocean currents attacking the underside of ice shelves are the dominant cause of recent ice loss from Antarctica, a new study using measurements from NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite revealed.
This article: “How asteroidmining could turn billionaires into trillionaires” includes a video interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson, Director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium.
“The U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Coast Guard have produced new synoptic data from samples collected in the ArcticOcean and insights into the patterns and extent of ocean acidification. This framework of foundational geochemical information will help inform our understanding of potential risks to Arctic resources due to ocean acidification.”
ScienceNow has an interesting about the largest know eruption of sand. It occurred on the floor of the North Sea where geysers erupted 10 cubic kilometers of sand.
Information about the topography of the ArcticOcean seafloor is becoming more important as the area’s energy resources attract attention and countries prepare their exclusive economic zone claims.
A natural oil seep is thought to be responsible for a 10-mile wide oil slick on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. There are many known natural oil seeps that are known to produce surface oil slicks.
Today’s magnitude 8.6 and magnitude 8.2 earthquakes off the western coast of northern Sumatra produced small tsunamis that tested warning systems developed since the 2004 Indian Oceantsunami.
“The Earth’s crust beneath the Mississippi Delta sinks at a much slower rate than what had been assumed. [...] However, these subsidence rates are small compared to the rate of present-day sea-level rise.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation press release.
“The Atlantis Massif, an undersea mountain, or seamount, formed in a very different way than the majority of the seafloor in the oceans. Unlike volcanic seamounts, which are made of the basalt that’s typical of most of the seafloor, Atlantis Massif includes rock types that are usually only found much deeper in the ocean crust, such as gabbro and peridotite.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation press release.
“Even if humankind manages to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius [...] future generations will likely have to deal with a completely different world.
One with sea levels 40 to 70 feet higher than at present.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation press release.
“This visualization shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through December 2007. The visualization does not include a narration or annotations; the goal was to use ocean flow data to create a simple, visceral experience.” Quoted from the NASA visualization release.
James Cameron, filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer, became the first person to pilot a submersible to the ocean’s deepest point in the Mariana Trench. The Challenger Deep was first explored by Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh in the Trieste bathyscaphe in 1960.
“The oceans act like a sponge to draw down excess carbon dioxide from the air. The gas reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid, which over time is neutralized by fossil carbonate shells on the seafloor. If too much carbon dioxide enters the ocean too quickly, it can deplete the carbonate ions that corals, mollusks and some plankton need for reef and shell-building.” Quote from the National Science Foundation press release.
An article on the New York Times website explores the impact of sea level rise on the United States. Coastal flooding is expected to become much more common in the near future and millions of people could be displaced by rising waters. Florida, New York, Loisiana, California and the Chesapeake area are at particular risk.
LiveScience has an interesting article on the forms of life encountered around a deep-sea vent system at the boundary of the Cocos and Caribbean Plates off the west coast of Costa Rica.
Pale green patterns tinted the water along the Namibian coast in late February 2012. But unlike other bright hues that occasionally show up in the ocean, these colors didn’t result from a phytoplankton bloom. [...] The sediments in the local seafloor are also rich with organic matter. When organic matter decays in an oxygen-poor environment, hydrogen sulfide emissions can result.
“The U.S. Geological Survey deployed a temporary monitoring network of water-level sensors at 212 locations along the Atlantic coast from South Carolina to Maine during August 2011 to record the timing, areal extent, and magnitude of inland hurricane storm tide and coastal flooding generated by Hurricane Irene. ” Quoted from the USGS publication release.
Marine treasure hunters claim to have located the SS Port Nicholson, a Britsh ship that was torpedoed by a German submarine in 1942. It was carrying over $2 billion in precious metals and industrial diamonds.
“Deep-sea corals can live for hundreds or thousands of years, creating complex communities at ocean depths where the light is dim down to more than 10,000 feet deep.” Quoted from the NOAA website.
Could a partnership between a commercial telecommunications company planning an undersea cable across the Pacific Ocean and science researchers seeing ocean bottom monitoring be a great opportunity for both?
“If the correlation holds, we would have a thermometer that goes back in time, a paleothermometer of how hot or cold water temperatures were when the nacre formed.” Quote from the University of Wisconsin press release.
“Despite brutal cold and lingering darkness, life in the frigid waters off Alaska does not grind to a halt in the winter as scientists previously suspected. According to preliminary results from a National Science Foundation-funded research cruise, microscopic creatures at the base of the Arctic food chain are not dormant as expected.”
The earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011 caused millions of tons of debris to be swept into the Pacific Ocean. Now winds and currents are carrying the debris eastward
An international team of scientists has documented a regular, significant and unexpected increase in the amount of particulate matter exported to the deep sea in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre that may be related to day length.
“Around the world coral reefs are facing threats brought by climate change and dramatic shifts in sea temperatures. While warming has been the primary focus for scientists and ocean policy managers, cold can also cause significant damage.” Quoted from the NSF press release.
“The TsunamiReady Program, developed by the National Weather Service, is designed to help cities, towns, counties, universities and other large sites in coastal areas reduce the potential for disastrous tsunami-related consequences.” NOAA has educational materials available for people of all ages.
“Mediterranean bottom currents and the sediment deposits they leave behind offer new insights into global climate change, the opening and closing of ocean circulation gateways and locations where hydrocarbon deposits may lie buried under the sea.”
“ESA satellites show that a large dome of fresh water has been building up in the ArcticOcean over the last 15 years. A change in wind direction could cause the water to spill into the north Atlantic, cooling Europe.” Quote from the ESA website.
“U.S. communities routinely use zoning laws to control where businesses may operate in a neighborhood. Now there’s a move to zone the ocean. A number of coastal states and the federal government have fledgling plans to coordinate competing uses for their off-shore waters.” Quoted from Voice of America.
“Of all the habitable parts of our planet, one ecosystem still remains largely unexplored and unknown to science: the igneous ocean crust. While scientists have estimated that microbes living in deep ocean sediments may represent as much as one-third of Earth’s total biomass, the habitable portion of the rocky ocean crust may be 10 times as great.”
A January 7th satellite image of the Red Sea shows the new volcanic island about 40 miles off the cost of Yemen. The pushpin on the Google Map at right shows the location of the new island. For an image showing steam and ash escaping from the vent visit the Earth Observatory website. If you look closely at the zoomed in map you will see that the island is located in the center of the Red Sea Rift.
The U.S. Department of State has a new website that provides information on the “Law of the Sea Convention”. The Law of the Sea will govern the use of Earth’s oceans and define Territorial Seas and Exclusive Economic Zones that will be controlled by various countries.
Do you know? Here is a clue… “The “snowflakes” grow as they fall, some reaching several centimeters in diameter. Some flakes fall for weeks before finally reaching the ocean floor.”
“A new NASA and University of Washington study allays concerns that melting Arctic sea ice could be increasing the amount of freshwater in the Arctic enough to have an impact on the global ocean conveyor belt’ that redistributes heat around our planet.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
“An eruption occurred in the Red Sea in December 2011. According to news reports, fishermen witnessed lava fountains reaching up to 30 meters tall on December 19.
By December 23, 2011, what looked like a new island appeared in the region.” Quote from the NASA image release.
“NASA and Ohio State University researchers have discovered the major tsunami generated by the Japanearthquake of March 2011 was a long-hypothesized ‘merging tsunami.’ The tsunami doubled in intensity over rugged ocean ridges, amplifying its destructive power at landfall.”
Volcanic activity continues south of El Hierro Island in the Canary Island chain. The cone is growing and is now about 60 meters below the surface. Will it produce a new island?
The Eruptions blog has interesting photos and commentary on the continuing subsea volcanic activity near the Canary Islands in a post titled: “Mixing Magmas at the Ongoing El Hierro Eruption“.
BBC.com has an underwater video that documents the formation of a brinicle – a brine icicle that forms beneath sea ice under extremely cold environment.
An article on the Bloomberg.com website reports that Royal Dutch Shell is currently the leading company for oil exploration in the Arctic.
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