Deep Sea News

SEED Magazine is running a welcome news story on a Japanese/EU agreement to ease their collective appetite for tuna. This is a very important development. The Japanese have been a significant source of politicial pressure at ICCAT in the past. This cooperative atmosphere for marine conservation may herald a new era in fisheries management.

If you’re interested in learning more about bluefin tuna (the most expensive fish in the world), there’s addtional background information on the Gulf of Mexico spawning grounds for bluefin tuna from a DSN story posted October 2006.

I am orginally from Arkansas so I am all too acquainted with the evil that is Wal-Mart. In Conway, AR, my favorite hardware store and a lot of the local downtown shops are gone now thanks to the new supercenter. Apparenlty, ADSA has fallen far(?) from the tree. ASDA is a supermarket chain found throughout the U.K. and is part of the Wal-Mart “family”. The BBC reports today that ASDA is to stop selling Monkfish.

The retail giant says it will no longer supply the restaurant favourite until there are more sustainable ways of catching it. Asda said the technique used to harvest the deep-sea monkfish was damaging to the marine ecosystem. It urged celebrity chefs to stop serving or endorsing the fish.

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Researchers report that an approach used for years to understand the structure of Earth’s oceanic crust is flawed and geoscientists will have reconsider the correspondence between seismic data and rock units when mapping formations of young oceanic crust.

More at Press Zoom…

The Bush Administration announced major budget increases totaling more than $140 million over the fiscal year 2007 request “to support coastal and marine conservation efforts in fiscal year 2008.” The press release announcing this new funding can be found here.

Highlights include:

* $123 million to NOAA for sustainable use of ocean resources ($25 million), protection and restoration of marine and coastal areas ($38 million), and enhanced ocean science and research ($60 million).

* $25 million to NSF and USGS to implement the Ocean Research Priority Plan (ORPP), with $3 million of that given to USGS for research, sea floor mapping, forecast models and water quality monitoring in “key coastal areas” like the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay.

My field time is mostly spent looking at snails living in soil in a wide range of terrestrial habitats. Over the last decade I have conducted field work at over 1100 sites across North America, ranging from the subtropical bay thickets of the Gulf Coast to the taiga of central Quebec across the Midwest to the shores of Hudson’s Bay at Churchill to the alpine tundra of Colorado and the montane forests of the desert Southwest to the coastal scrub and redwood forests of the Big Sur (see Craig’s picture of me hard at work here). But, snails are found across all of the Earth’s major habitat types. So, when Craig offered to let me tag along on one of his deep sea collecting trips, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

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A reader recently asked me for recommendations for books about the deep appropriate for children. Here is my running list and we’ll have Peter (who actually has child instead of being one) provide some recommendations in a later post.

• One of my favorites is The Deep-Sea Floor by Collard. Great text that is accessible for even young children. The wonderful illustrations by Wenzel help to children visualize the environment. I often hand this out as a gift. Collard also has In the Deep Sea, that I have not seen but should be has excellent as his other.
• Another fantastic book is Diving To A Deep-Sea Volcano by Mallory. It has great photographs and follows Richard Lutz, a deep-sea biologist, as he explores hydrothermal vents. What I think is best about this book is the enthusiasm in which “doing” science is conveyed.
• Although I have not seen an actual copies, Fountains of Life and Exploring the Deep, Dark Sea are supposed to be a fantastic books
• Beneath Blue Waters by Kovacs and Madin has excellent photographs several of organisms not yet named
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You can now “view” the entire conversation over at WHOI.

Yeah that’s a mouthful of a name…so go with WAM-V. Got to say this is one of cooler designs I have seen, much better than the Flipper boat . Apparently WAM-V is modular and can host either a luxury cabin for two, simple cruising accommodations for up to six passengers, twelve passenger transport, scuba diving platform, lab for collection and on site analysis of specimen, oceanographic equipment deployer, emergency response unit, or a surveillance station

This pink gorgonian coral was photographed by ROV Tiburon at a depth of about 1,700 meters (5,600 feet) during an expedition to Davidson Seamount in 2002. Several small pink shrimp are climbing on the coral, perhaps eating small animals or bits of the coral itself. From MBARI.

One of my favorite artists and favorite subjects together. Johnny Cash + Squid = Tentacles Cash (via this website). Much better than a blending of two of my other favorites.