Deep Sea News

The Arctic explorer Sir John Ross brought an Inuit sled back to England.  On that sled the rawhide lashing were tied in knot similar to the bowline illustrating that this variant knot’s history does indeed tied to the Inuits.  The eskimo bowline is actually much more secure than a typical bowline, especially in the synthetic lines we use in marine science, so it is a knot worth commanding. Picture of the knot is here and instructions are here.

USS Ohio. Photo from Wikimedia

What started off 2 years ago as a joke by sub enthusiasts, will now be a reality. The Navy has made it clear that it wants to allow women to serve on submarines and is has hinted it is prepared to make those moves toward renovating quarters for the new occupants. Making up nearly 14% of Navy, women are increasingly become more important to the Navy’s operation. They grow up wanting to explore the deep sea just as much as any man and do just as good as a job.

What is impressive is that the Navy took the first step and it is a strategic move in more than just rightly promoting gender equality, as pointed out in Connecticut’s TheDay.com:

In addition to the fairness of providing women the same opportunities as their male counterparts, there are practical reasons for the change. It is an ongoing challenge for the Navy to recruit enough men to serve aboard submarines. Because of the unique challenges of submarine service, submariners face more rigorous intellectual and psychological standards. Permitting women would significantly expand the pool of potential recruits.

But there are some strange oppositions to this. From what I’ve read, it really breaks down into women invading the ‘good ole boys club’, as hinted by this retired Navy captain writing in the Arizona Republic and the following news clip from CBS:

Submarines present a unique environment, and to anyone who has served on them as I have, the reasons to exclude women are obvious.

First, submarines are extremely cramped; space is at a premium and every inch is used for needed equipment, weapons, sensors and supplies. To accommodate women, costly design modifications would be required and take space needed for higher priority items.

Secondly, putting men and women together in very confined quarters for long periods of time submerged (up to two-plus months) is simply asking for trouble, both aboard the submarine and potentially on the home front.”

These attitudes are troubling on multiple fronts. Not sure how women take up much more space than men in a bunk. Is all the hair dryers and make-up? They hint that sharing bathrooms is a problem. Well, on research ships where we often have mixed crew, quarters are assigned such that bathrooms are shared by all members of the same sex. Surely, this could be arranged?

Most disconcerting is that this discussion appears to a priori assume women are to blame for the potential to cause problems because of their presence. Or is it just me? There seems to be a subtle tone that women will arrive on subs and total sexual anarchy will result. The comment in the video about worry there will be more sexual harassment lawsuits is probably NOT THE WOMEN’S FAULT if she is being harassed. There seems to be this belief that women will invade the married man’s sanctuary and steal your husbands!1!!1!!  If these “rigorous intellectual and psychological standards” that are required are true, then surely married men can control themselves on (and off) the job? Shocking as it may seem to prime time network TV viewers, but not all male-female interactions need have sexual overtones.

I’ll close with this bit of hindsight from TheDay.com that reminds us:

“Many of the concerns about allowing women aboard submarines – lack of privacy, fears of fraternization, disrupting crew morale and camaraderie – are the same heard when the Navy first allowed women on support ships in 1978 and on combat ships in 1994. Most apt to the discussion about allowing women on submarines is the fact the Navy now has gender-integrated crews on ships once considered too small for mixed crews, such as mine hunters.”

Komos Beach on the south coast of Crete, near Matala Source: Own photo. Crete, 2004 Photographer: Arne Nordmann (norro), Germany From Wikimedia Commons

In case you didn’t know Crete is an island.  Shocking, I know but stay with me.  Crete has been an island for five million years.  What happens when you find a quartz stone hand ax on Crete 130,000 years old? You drop a quartz brick in your pants

“I was flabbergasted,” said Boston University archaeologist and stone-tool expert Curtis Runnels. “The idea of finding tools from this very early time period on Crete was about as believable as finding an iPod in King Tut’s tomb.”

This suggests that Homo heidelbergensis had the ability to set sail pushing the ability to island hop tens of thousands of millennia earlier than expected.

Close

Ginormous halibut from Cousteau Society's World Ocean Census. Picture taken c. 1910 at Provincetown, MA. (click image)

Perusing the internet for maps, I came across the Cousteau Society’s World Ocean Census. They have several extracts available to read online. I clicked on Extract 4: Painting a Picture of the Past – Whaling Logs, Menus and Other Records and found this ginormous halibut! As an example of how baselines shift, I didn’t even know halibut got that frikkin big!! Its pretty frightening to think how I have lived slightly over 30 years with the image in my head of a fish that I typically eat that is only a fraction of the size it once was. The scarier part is that, halibut, indeed all fish, may be even smaller or not even around for my kids to enjoy. A world without smoked halibut or halibut Bearnaise is not a world I want to pass down to my adorable children.

I want my kids to be as enthralled with tasty large fish as I was with this image. Except, I do not want to look at pictures of ghosts of large fish past, I want to see them out there in the ocean. I want to eat halibut, but see healthy populations thriving on seafloor.

Can I have my cake and eat it too? I think so, this is why we need to continue providing sound science-based management and interact with policy makers and fisheries manager.  Most importantly, we need to reach out to fishermen and provide incentives and technology that aide them in earning their living sustainably and support an industry that provides many jobs in rural economies. This includes reducing demand, and thus raising prices, to relieve pressure on the fish. Are you prepared to pay the real worth of your food in the western world? I’ll put my money where my mouth is.

Buy The World Ocean Census, visit The Cousteau Society.

This awesome design is a t-shirt you can buy from Zazzle!! (click on image)

As part of Darwin Day on Friday, I gave a brief talk at Duke Marine Lab during happy hour about Darwin and his beloved barnacles. I was going to post the slides but didn’t think they did the 201 year legacy of Darwin much justice out of the talk’s context so I decided to write up the talk as a post. Happy Darwin Day!

————————————–

Barnacles held an immense fascination for Darwin. It was through some rather chance events that he ended up being the world’s expert on this fascinating group. He created 4 volumes of masterpieces devoted to all available living and fossil barnacles worldwide. I hope to show that indeed his work with the barnacle did indeed contribute to solidifying his thoughts on transmutation and improving his understanding of what will eventually become his greatest contribution to science. Before we get started though let’s sit back, learn the barnacle basics and set the mood for this post!

The world of patenting is quite different from the world of science. Weaving through the legalese and dry writing is horrendous at time. I am doing some research on patents to understand how knowledge of the deep-sea has permeated through society. One the examples I found is described below.

In 2000, one Cyrus Milanian of Florida was awarded a patent for his invention of “Re-enactment of a deep-sea voyage to the bottom of the sea”. In other words, he built an amusement ride intended for a freshwater lake in association with a hotel casino that was titanic themed. As you might guess the dream sunk, but he must have been determined to get credit due and sought out to patent his wild ride. Below are some of the schematics. The entire patent is available freely at the USPTO and Google Patents.

As you can see, Fig. 1 is the trackway through a lake or freshwater body. I wasn’t sure how he intended to replicate the deep-sea in a freshwater lake. I’m guessing Disney World-style props. Fig. 2 shows the view of the “conveyance”, or submarine. It is attached to a monorail that is out of sight for the passengers. Looks like it would have a cool ride!

Own this rare art print of the Bathyscaphe Trieste, signed by explorers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh. Details below!

Last year saw the passing of a legend, Jacques Piccard. Along with Don Walsh, these two trailblazers forged an era of deep-sea exploration that no other person has been able to supersede. Don and Jacques manned the Bathyscaphe Trieste down 10,916 meters to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, a place now known as Challenger Deep. There they witnessed firsthand life in the deepest part of ocean as flatfish scurried away from the descending vehicle, sealing the fate of the possibility for a lifeless deep.

My good friend and deep-sea colleague has produced an art print to celebrate the 50th anniversary this year of this unheralded feat (reproduced in part above). In the words of project co-founder Peter Batson – deep-sea photographer, biologist, author of Deep New Zealand and coauthor of the recently released Into the Deep:

“We started the Trieste print project four years ago, when Jacques was still alive. A limited edition art print seemed like a good idea – guys like Edmund Hillary and the lunar astronauts had been doing signed art prints for years.  It seemed crazy that the defining moment in deep ocean exploration was not being similarly commemorated – Trieste’s Deep Dive really is mind-boggling when you look into it.

Captain Don Walsh worked on the print with us, helping us out with acquiring Navy structural plans and other technical advice. It was a very interesting project to work on, as you can imagine, and as a fellow deep-sea nut I don’t need to explain how amazing it was spending time with both Trieste divers. I knew who these guys were when I was a kid.”

Please visit their well-designed website, DeepestDive.com, dedicated to preserving the memory of the Trieste. There is a lot of great information there. This is a rare once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for collectors and the asking is not cheap, but you will own a valuable piece of ocean exploration history, including a signed print by Walsh and the now deceased Piccard.

National Geographic reports that shipworms are nibbling upon the Baltic Sea’s well-preserved shipwrecks, nom-ing them into oblivion. The shipworm is actually a wood-boring mollusc, Teredo navalis, which is able to live solely upon wood with the aid of wood-digesting symbiotic bacteria. (How many times can I say “wood”? Never mind, please insert “Got Wood” joke here.)

Changes in the salinity of the Baltic Sea has allowed Teredo to move in and feast upon a shipwreck bounty, potentially destroying everything from Viking ships to 17th century Swedish warships. There is only one solution – millions of tiny SCUBA-certified Vikings.

This week’s TGIF comes from a post I read on Penguin Wanderings. Craig and I are looking into these as our new base of operations for Deep Sea News.

See all 10 at Oobject.com: 10 Dry Land Submarines.