Enjoy live feeds from the Secrets of the Gulf Expedition with the US Navy NR1 Nuclear Submarine and Bob Ballard’s Argos tow sled as they survey the Flower Garden Banks region for paleo-shorelines and deep octocoral habitats at 100m depth. I’ll be taking part in the benthic surveys remotely. I hope you can, too.
View More Secrets of the Gulf Expedition OnlineAuthor: Peter Etnoyer
PhD candidate at Texas A&M University- Corpus Christi and doctoral fellow Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies.
Vermes
What’s 200 feet long, has 18 ways to reproduce, and breaks into pieces? The worm. Vermes.
View More VermesDeep water warming off Russia
Researchers from the neatly monikered Institute of Low Temperature Science at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan are showing that intermediate water (200-2000m) off Russia has warmed significantly over the past 50 years. The warming trend is accompanied by decreasing oxygen content. The warmer water is attributed to a decrease in (cold) shelf water production in the Sea of Okhotsk, an epicenter of global warming.
View More Deep water warming off RussiaArctic mounds have gassy past
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) scientists working in the Arctic Ocean unraveled the geological origin of many mysterious mounds, called “pingos”, off Canada’s north coast. Pingos are small, dome-shaped, ice-cored hills about 40m tall, found along the coast of the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula. Earlier studies claimed these features were formed on land, and then submerged when sea level rose following the end of the last ice age, over 10,000 years ago. Apparently, the reverse may be true.
View More Arctic mounds have gassy pastFriday Deep-Sea Picture (02/16/07)
DSN Valentine Kate Winslet reminds me of mermaids. Were they ever so beautiful…? She is shown here hunting giant squid. Photo by Annie Leibovitz, in…
View More Friday Deep-Sea Picture (02/16/07)25 Million Dollar Earth Challenge
Former Vice President Al Gore joined airline tycoon Richard Branson today to announce a $25 million prize to the first person to come up with a way of scrubbing greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere in the battle to
beat global warming. Today, he joined Richard Branson, the British magnate, adventurer, and now eco-entrepreneur, in announcing the Virgin Earth Challenge, a $25 million bounty Mr. Branson is offering for any scientist or team who can figure out a way to pull the most significant heat-trapping gas, carbon dioxide, directly out of the air.
WWF does it again
The “panda-people” at World Wildlife Fund are promoting a recent success protecting deep-water habitats in the “coral-rich waters off north-west Scotland”. It makes me laugh…
View More WWF does it againJust Science Weekend: They Eat Their Young
When you see frozen fish sticks, think cod; when you eyeball the seafood salad at Subway, think pollock. Deep-sea fishes are all around us, but we know very little about them. For example, did you know cod have a bioluminescent anus? And they cannibalize their young? If not, please, read on.
View More Just Science Weekend: They Eat Their YoungJust Science Weekend: Gadid Fish
Deep-sea cod (family Gadidae) are “one of the most important families of fishes in the deep-sea”. Their deep siblings include pollock and hake. Pollock is what they use to make fake crab legs in the Subway seafood salad. It’s packaged as sarimi, a strange white Asian boloney. Sarimi fishermen catch pollock with bottom trawls off Alaska, and press the meat into a white pressed sausage stained with bright colors in the sliced meat section at the Vietnamese grocery. Check it out sometime.
View More Just Science Weekend: Gadid FishTuna Relief
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.…
View More Tuna Relief