petnoyer
Posts by this author
June 15, 2007
Unbelievably, a 50 ton bowhead whale was discovered with a 19th century bomb lance fragment lodged between its neck and shoulder the bomb lance fragment was patented in 1879, making the whale between 115-130 years old according to researchers. See this amazing story from the American Cetacean…
June 14, 2007
The video speaks for itself! Brought to your attention by Kevin Zelnio (Thanks Sue!). This was yesterday's footage from the Florida media outlets.
June 13, 2007
NOAA Great Lake Environmental Research Laboratory ships: Laurentian, Shenanon and Huron Explorer. In 1998, President Clinton enacted Executive Order 13101 for government agencies to reduce waste, recycle and use environmentally friendly and sustainable products including bio-products. Fast…
June 13, 2007
Press release from Ocean Conservancy.....
San Francisco, CA -- Responding to concerns by scientists and conservation groups, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) affirmed protections for critically endangered leatherback sea turtles in California waters. NMFS denied a proposed exempted…
June 7, 2007
I like to look at the bright side. Tell me 90% of sharks are gone from the ocean, and my mind will spin the problem like a puzzle until there's light at the end of the tunnel. If 90% of sharks are gone, then 10% of sharks are still swimming, right?
Take away 90% of the cats in my neighborhood and…
June 5, 2007
Penguins populations on South Africa's Robben Island are feeling the pinch as climate change redistributes sardine and anchovy populations away from their nesting grounds. New York Times runs a nice story on the issue here.
Conservation groups are calling the penguins a "canary on the coal mine", i…
June 4, 2007
This just in. It's National Oceans Month.
That's like 30 World Ocean Days (June 8) all rolled into one.
(Can't touch this...)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070531-6.html
In the press release, President George W. Bush reminds us of the good progress we've made under his…
June 4, 2007
Two interesting new articles are available from the American Geophysical Union publications. The first requires a brief ocean geography lesson, the second documents newly identified features off the Pacific coast of Mexico.
Walczowski, W and J Piechura. 2007. Pathways of the Greenland Sea warming.…
June 3, 2007
Couldn't wait until next Friday to share this promotional shot for the International Polar Year at MSN's Photoblogs.
May 31, 2007
While we wait for Craig and the crew to reboot the MBARI ROV, I should note the NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration just recently posted expedition logs for the Olympic Coast 2006 Exploration for Deep-Sea Coral Communities off the coast of Washington State.
The homepage for the expedition is here…
May 25, 2007
There's a whole new revenue stream on the horizon. Livescience reports that Japanese scientists in the AMOEBA (Advanced Multiple Organized Experimental Basin), project have learned to write on water.
The image above shows the letter S formed by standing waves in a custom engineered water tank…
May 22, 2007
Wood's Hole researchers in the Eddies Dynamics, Mixing, Export, and Species composition (EDDIES) project confirmed that ocean productivity is enhanced by upwelling eddies in the oligotropic Sargasso Sea. The slowly swirling water masses were teeming with diatoms in concentrations 10,000 to 100,000…
May 22, 2007
The New York Times posts a stunning selection of images in their review of Claire Nouvian's "The Deep". Craig ran a book blurb on the blog back in March.
The collection of images definitely raises deep-sea photography to a new level. The quality of light and posture of the photos is reminiscent of…
May 21, 2007
Hydrothermal vents have given us many things, including new autotrophic paradigms, new species, a new appreciation for seafloor spreading centers, some cool websites and a best-ever IMAX movie . But the fact that seafloor massive sulfides can precipitate a king's ransom in gold, silver, copper,…
May 17, 2007
Speaking of incredible deep-working freshwater robots (Texas rocks), LA Times Science section has a great story on the Canadian underwater lumberjacks at Triton Logging. Inc. The enterprise has developed a remote-controlled chainsaw-wielding submarine called the Sawfish to harvest cedar, pine,…
May 14, 2007
This is a play on words alluding to Andy Warhol's multimedia vents in the mid 60's. Like Andy's quote about 15 minutes of fame in the future, this dire prediction about the 'exploding' plastic inevitable has also come true. He was a strange oracle, indeed.
Best Life Magazine covers one of the most…
April 26, 2007
This crystal was recovered from the preserved tissue of a bamboo coral collected from Alaska's Aleutian Islands in the 1850's. Bamboo corals are deep-sea gorgonians (or sea fans) in the family Isididae. They can be found as deep as 3500m in the Northeast Pacific. This particular bamboo coral is…
April 26, 2007
Mr. Leatherback reports that we have a winner in the Great Turtle Race. A sea-turtle named Billie made the trek from Coast Rica to the Galapagos in ten days. Billie was sponsored by the Offield Center for Billfish Studies.
Meanwhile, Yahoo's "Turtleocity" set the record for deepest diving turtle…
April 21, 2007
This Earth Day, remember the deep-sea. The goblin shark (shown here) and the frill shark are two of the rarest and deepest dwelling of sharks. Only two of each species have been taken in North America EVER. That's why researcher Jose Castro from Mote Marine Laboratory was surprised when Japanese…
April 20, 2007
The core idea behind Megavertebrate Week was to identify neritic species that can be found in the deep sea, in order to make that "deep-sea connection" for people outside our typical readership. It worked.
We hit the list serves for C Turtle and for MarMam. We made the blog rolls in Germany and…
April 20, 2007
Story by Michelle Kinzel, OSU
How do you study the sperm whale, Physeter catadon, when they dive up to 3 km (1.9 miles) to the bottom of the ocean floor and stay submerged up to 90 minutes? Sperm whales reach lengths of 18 m (60 ft) and possess blood volumes up to 3 tonnes. The blood stores oxygen…
April 20, 2007
A close encounter with a whale shark is one of the "things to do" on the life list for many scuba divers and snorkelers. Perhaps you have been one of the lucky few to swim with these enormous friendly elasmobranchs off Honduras in Utila (pictured), off Belize at Gladden Spit, or off the coast of…
April 19, 2007
Conservation International wins this year's Award for Affirmative Action by hiring an endangered species to raise awareness about biodiversity conservation and habitat loss.
His health benefits are probably better than ours. He'll need those benefits, too. Nearly 90% of leatherback turtles in the…
April 17, 2007
Does all this talk about migrations and megavertebrates make you hungry? Do you feel like you must eat food, but you don't want to break away from all the excitement? Teleport yourself to the world's first all glass undersea restaurant at the Hilton Maldives.
Press release below.
The Maldives |…
April 17, 2007
Story by Sara Maxwell and Patrick Robinson, University of California-Santa Cruz
Imagine it. The sun is shining. You're snoozing on a sandy beach. You're a Californian - at least for now. You gave birth to a little girl just a few short weeks ago, but already hunger is gnawing at your stomach - it's…
April 16, 2007
Story by Bryan Wallace, Duke University.
UW photo by Ed Standora.
Life in the deep sea is as far removed from a source of atmospheric oxygen as there is on Earth, but a select few animals do not let their need to breathe air limit the depths of their exploration. (No, I'm not referring to intrepid…
April 14, 2007
The writers at Deep Sea News are big fans of all things invertebrate. We bend over backwards trying to convince people that deep-sea worms, isopods, anemones, and squid are the coolest animals anywhere on Earth. We stick up our noses at charismatic megafauna like sea turtles and whales, thinking "…
April 12, 2007
There is so much happening in the world of sea turtles right now that we're going to dedicate an entire week of postings to sea turtles and their air breathing kin. We're calling it Megavertebrate Week. Note the new banner above. We argue that turtles, seals, and whales should all be considered…
April 10, 2007
Eddies are an important nexus between physical oceanography and marine biology because these giant swirling tornadoes of seawater are pervasive in the world's oceans. Passing eddies can accelerate local currents, retain and transport plankton and nutrients, enhance open water productivity, and…
April 8, 2007
The ongoing story of our letter to the Pope made ink Friday at the Daytona Beach News Journal. This was my first Op-Ed letter. It was pretty easy to do through email. Try it sometime when you have a message for the masses.
Unfortunately, the key link to contact the Vatican at ProPeninsula is…