Call me crazy

Wipeout

The waves brewing in the "Graveyard of the Pacific," the stretch of coastal region that spans from Oregon to Washington state, are getting larger and more powerful according to scientists.

The culprit behind the relentless waves is thought to be climate change. Scientists are using buoy data and models based on wind patterns to determine whether their predictions are correct. They are reporting that the waves off the coast of the Pacific Northwest as well as the Atlantic seaboard are steadily increasing in size. Similar increases have been documented in the North Atlantic off the coast of England.

This is just another fingerprint that climate change has put on Earth. Kind of scary.

Apparently this has been studied since the mid 1970s, with data showing increases of four inches per year, which would now add up to be 10 feet total. However, some scientists are skeptical about whether there's a link to climate change, citing the fact we don't know enough information about the ocean to make that judgement. One of my personal favorite quotes regarding this is from Richard Seymour, head of the Ocean Engineering and Research Group at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California:

"It has always surprised me that we know more about the surface of Mars than the floor of the Pacific Ocean."

That makes two of us.

I just hope we don't one day have to deal with this:

Underwater forests

Simply beautiful.

Out of tissues

Over the past few months scientists have been studying what they call "slime-snot" (ew) on the seafloor, which they believe to be is where a lot of the oil went following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Vernon Asper, a professor of marine sciences at University of Southern Mississippi, and his colleagues wanted to figure out what this slime-like substance was on the seafloor. So, in turn, they used BP's funds to buy a multicorer, which obtains underwater oil samples.

One of the cylinders. It's probably in your best

interest to never Google Image "slime snot"

In the first cylinder, the scientists found just mud. However, in the second, they found a thin dark layer that tested positive for oil; in between, a substance that is presumably oil, and lastly a two-inch thick layer of this "slime snot," which they believe is basically a mixture of oil and the bacteria feeding on it.

Although they said this will take time to find out exactly how much damage is being done, they presume a fair amount of the ecosystem has been affected by this thick sludge atop the seafloor.

$uck it, BP.

Ulterior motives

One of the cables released a few weeks ago by the wonderful Wikileaks stated that the record breaking marine reserve built by the U.K. in the Indian Ocean was built more or less to prevent former islanders to return to their homeland.

The reason? In the 1960s and 70s the United States displaced around 2,000 inhabitants of Chagos Archipelego to build a military base on an island called Diego Garcia. Since their displacement, the islanders have wanted to come back to fight for their rights in European Court of Human Rights.

The cables ensured the building of the island would guarantee security for both British and Americans.

"We do not regret the removal of the population, since removal was necessary for the BIOT to fulfill its strategic purpose," Official with the British Foreign Office, Colin Roberts said. "Removal of thepopulation is the reason that the BIOT's uninhabited islands and the surrounding waters are in "pristine" condition."


Roberts added that Diego Garcia's excellent condition reflects the responsible stewardship of the U.S. and UK forces using it.

Uh, since when did our country care about pristine waters?

Interesting

When I was 14 I was not doing anything brave such as this. White water rafting was probably the most extreme thing I ever did at that age. To go sailing solo around the world would have never crossed my mind. This Dutch chick has been lost and found a few times according to Google searches, however I haven't really been able to find any exact information. She arrived in St. Maartin just earlier this week and said that has always been her dream to sail there alone. 

Apparently she was born on a sailing trip her parents were having, and has been quoted as saying she feels as though she's in prison when she's in a house and prefers the sea because it makes her feel free in this article. Pretty cool girl! Dangerous, but cool.

Ancient Balloon-Headed Dolphin discovered

The remains of a 2.5 million year-old dolphin with a spoon-shaped snout and large head was pulled up by a Dutch fisherman in the North Sea in 2008, and scientists now think it is a distant relative of the pilot whale. They believe its large head may be used for echolocation, which is a biological form of sonar that allows dolphins and certain whales to navigate murky waters.

Photo via National Geographic

For more information on the newly discovered mammal, click here for the article in Dutch journal Deinsea.

Tribe

I am posting another water themed song that I thought of. I've always wanted to see this song live. He played it last time he was in Chicago but alas, I wasn't there. YouTube videos will have to suffice in the meantime.

Exploshunzzz

This song just came on shuffle on my iTunes and when I YouTubed the song, a video of an image from the ocean accompanies it. It'd be way cooler if it was an actual video, but whatever the song still rules.

Tapped

Click HERE to learn about Chromium! This is serious. Chromium in our tap water means cancer causing toxins in everything. Beer... Cucumbers... You know, everything!

This is a poem my friend Shayna wrote:

A flowing miracle that must be preserved 

But there's an industrial population to be served 

Chemicals, pesticides in our water, reside 

Pharmaceuticals have been found in wildlife 

Landfills, air pollution, animal factory waste

Now how does your tap water taste? 

Atrizine is illegal in Europe but number one in United States 

Ironically they sell it to us by the mass in crates 

People in other countries are running out much quicker 

Water in Bolivia and India is making them sicker 

Billions of gallons a day are pumped and bottled 

Voices of American people continue to be throttled 

Humans are on the brink of the 6th mass extinction 

We depend on nature; nature does not depend on us 

It’s important for all of us to know this distinction 

The industry of water is 400 billion dollars 

Little do most know that bottled water is squalor 

Biologists tested over 100 different brands 

And found that it's no safer or cleaner than our tap water at hand 

A flowing miracle that must be preserved 

But an industrial population to be served 

How can we sell the sky?

If we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water,

How can they be for sale to buy? 

In other parts of the world these things are truly sacred 

We can no longer let this go on, water shall not be wasted.  

This flow is life, and life is this flow 

There are ways you can help, but first you must know 

Indeed, ignorance is bliss 

But bliss only lasts 'till our species is 6 feet below

I used to drink a lot of Fiji water in highschool.

West Virginia, Mountain Mama

So this isn't really about oceans, but has a tie in with water, which I am going to let slide because this issue is a big deal. It has recently come to my attention just in fact how damaging mountain top removal is. I had always heard about it from friends and progressive media, however, I never really looked that much into it. When I did, my eyes were opened. I wrote an article about it (which could probably use a lot of editing buuuut will suffice for now.)

Coal mining, one of America’s biggest economic activities to date, could be destroying the second most bio diverse forest in the world, according to scientists. The technique causing an upset among a West Virginia mountain town is mountaintop mining, also called mountain top removal, which has damaged 2,000 miles of streams and could potentially destroy up to 1.4 million acres of forest by 2020.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, mountaintop mining is a surface removal practice that uses explosives to remove mountaintops in order to expose coal seams, or beds of coal thick enough to be profitably mined. The debris and rubble are then disposed into nearby valleys and streams, an environmentally damaging process called valley fills, which causes irreversible damage and contamination to the streams.

Bo Webb, a Coal River Mountain, WV resident, has tirelessly attempted to stop coal companies to stop mining near his home. Webb said he and his neighbors live in constant fear that the mountain above may split apart and damage their homes.

Webb, a 7th generation Appalachian to call the West Virginia mountains home, lives in a hollow that can be traced back to his ancestors since at least 1823. Forced to leave the property at age 12 due to lack of jobs, his family moved to Cleveland, OH, but they returned every weekend as well as holidays and vacations to be with the rest of his family.

After the passing of his grandmother in 1984, Webb purchased the property from his uncle, and moved back to the hollow permanently in 2001 to enjoy early retirement and enjoy the connection with the mountains that he had when he was younger. However, shortly after the move is when he started experiencing the effects of the mining. He said one of the major issues in his community is flooding because there are no topsoil, trees or understory to absorb the rain.

“The mountain stream that runs at the edge of my property has been wiped out of all aquatic life within the past two years,” Webb said.  “As a kid we used to catch fish bait in that stream--lizards, crayfish and such.  It was a living incubator of life, probably for at least the last couple hundred million years.  Mountaintop removal wiped it out within two years, transforming it into a tomb of death.”

On Nov. 10, Webb was one of 10 people awarded the celebrated Purpose Prize in which he was given $50,000 for his efforts to end the Big Coal destruction to his homeland. He said he frequently travels to Washington D.C. with justice groups to urge the EPA to take stronger action against the mining that he said is destroying his community and his heritage and will not stop until something more is done.

“Our mountains are our connection with our heritage and our culture,” he said. “If we allow them to be destroyed we are allowing ourselves to be destroyed. The EPA could call a press conference tomorrow and declare a moratorium on all mountain top removal stating that in the interest of public health all mountain top removal operations are on hold until the EPA conducts a complete scientific study on the total impact of [the practice]. At the very least the EPA could enforce the Clean Water Act. That alone would end it.”

According to a press release from [name asked to be withheld] of the EPA’s Press Office, the EPA will use its Clean Water Act to guarantee that future mining will not cause significant environmental, water quality and human health impacts. He added that they are creating a permit tracking Web site so that the public can determine the status of mining permits to ensure transparency.

Jim Sconyers, chair of the West Virginia chapter of The Sierra Club, said valley fills and mountain top removal go hand in hand and agrees if the federal laws were better enforced mountain top removal would be banned.

“You can’t do much more damage to a stream than to obliterate it with millions of tons of debris,” he said. “This is the worst ongoing environmental disaster in the U.S., hands down. There are two disasters happening, one is damaging the mountains, the other being the eradication of thriving, pristine streams. Our protective agencies have admitted if everybody had to obey the letter of the law, most coal mining would have to stop.  It is only by turning blind eye or teasing out the loop holes that this goes on.”

According to the web site of Massey Energy Co., the regions largest coal producer, the company is committed to the safety of their employees.

However, the company has been cited for numerous safety violations over the years. A statement released by The Mine Safety and Health Administration, MSHA, states they responded to three separate complaints regarding hazardous conditions at mines owned by the company within the month of March 2010 alone. 


Some of the violations listed included failure to maintain the minimum air ventilation requirements, accumulation of combustible materials and roof control violations. According to the report, in one instance, the operator failed to follow the approved roof control plan by illegally mining 8 feet beyond the allowable depth of 20 feet.

In another instance, inspectors also found a mine operator not providing adequate ventilation to reduce risk of explosions after responding to an anonymous complaint about hazardous conditions at a site following a small fire. Proper ventilation is required by the law to prevent mine explosions and black lung.

A number of deaths have also reportedly happened on various company-owned sites. The most recent accident was an April 5 explosion that took the lives of 29 miners at the company’s Upper Big Branch Mine, making it the worst U.S. mining disaster in 40 years.

The company’s CEO Don Blackenship was scheduled to testify Dec. 14 before a federal panel investigating the deadly blast. However, after announcing that he will retire from the company at the end of the month in early December, he has joined other Massey employees by exercising his Fifth Amendment right and refuses to testify.

Repeated phone calls and e-mails to Massey Energy Co. headquarters were not returned.

Sconyers said although he and other Appalachia residents fighting to end mountain top removal have kept permits for new mining sites from being approved, he’s not sure if it means the end for coal mining in West Virginia.

“Who knows where it’ll go from there—the fact of the matter is that all the analysts that don’t work for coal companies are seeing that the handwriting's on the wall,” he said. “I’m up close and personal to it, so I know what it is what it looks like. If you haven’t seen it, it’s disgusting and tragic. It needs to stop.”

OK.

Ken Feinberg, Chief of BP said today that there will be a full recovery of the waters and no long-term effects. That definitely makes me feel way better, considering there has been little to no damage in the first place, right? You know, it's not like the nearly 2 million gallons of chemical dispersant his corporation was using had a chance at causing irreversible damage to the delicate ecosystem or anything. Yo dude, f$$k you.

VIRUS

It seems as though the ocean has developed a virus that is somewhat similar to the "superbug" we have on land.

The Cafeteria roenbergensis virus infects a major marine zooplankter which occupies a key position in marine food webs. It has been identified as the world's largest marine virus and also boasts a genome larger than those found in most cellular organisms.

Scientists are unsure as to what it does, as it borders along the lines of "unliving" and "living." Weird.

=)

"The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities. If they are not there, science cannot create them." - Rachel Carson

New snailfish

A team of marine biologists from Aberdeen, New Zealand and Tokyo discovered a crazy looking fish while on an expedition to the Peru-Chile trench, one of the world's deepest ocean trenches, last week.

The snailfish was living at 7,000 meters deep, and was caught on film for the first time.

They found a number of other crustacean-esque species while on this three week scavenger hunt, in which they didn't expect to find anything seeing as how they didn't think the waters were inhabited by any fish at all.

I love things like this!

Picture of the snailfish: http://conservationreport.com/2010/10/18/new-species-of-snailfish-discovered-in-one-of-the-world’s-deepest-ocean-trenches/

Global WarNing?

Since May of this year, up to 50 percent of Acropora colonies, which are extremely rare, along with 50 percent from other species have died in the Indian Ocean and the Coral Triangle (bounded by Phillipines, Malasia and Indonesia, often referred to as the 'Amazon Rainforest of the ocean,') two of the most rich and diverse areas of bodies of water on our planet.

With the death of the coral, death of the political and economical stability in the areas will be a result beginning over the course of the next few years.

The coral died from bleaching, in a particular situation where a pool of too-hot water came through and because of being so shocked from the temperature change, lost its symbiotic algae that protects them from starving to death via malnourishment.

This outbreak has been named one of the worst in marine life history.

As the waters continue to move it is unsure whether Australia will be affected in early 2011. Similar situations have happened there; in 1998 and 2004 40 percent of the reefs along the Great Barrier Reef were affected.

Scary stuff.


More information on the Coral Triangle:http://www.worldwildlife.org/what/wherewework/coraltriangle/

Who knew?

The East Kozmino Bay, a body of water east of Moscow is soon going to be home to a scallop garden to detect contaminants in the water. Who knew those little guys could do such a thing? It is the first Russian port to use the mollusks as a water-monitoring instrument. They can detect oil and heavy metal, and if detected they will imbibe it back to clean water. How cool is that to have such environmentally sanitary capabilities?

Why?

http://www.bahamasb2b.com/news/2010/10/exuma-marine-park-development-might-be-approved-2614.html

Dredge 9 acres of a pristine area. Ok, cuz that makes sense. WHY.

Fractals

I love fractals and although the intro to this video is pretty lame, the video itself is neat to look at.

Something else to smile about

Today the Chilean government announced they will reserve a large amount of Pacific Ocean waters around a tiny island, Sala y Gómez Island. This is great news considering less than 2 percent of the global ocean is protected. The Island is one of the most pristine places on the planet and the country is in talks to even expand the reserve in the upcoming years. Sa weet.

Sala y Gómez Island

Something to smile about

"We need to make sacrifices to provide a future for our children and grandchildren."  This article really opened my mind and made me really happy, yet sad at the same time. This one small country, Kiribati, has closed off 150,000 square miles to fishing just to preserve the fish population. Nearly half of their tax revenue comes from fishing, however they are putting the sea before their own needs out of respect. It made me think about how our country makes more than enough from the fishing industry, yet we don't really make any attempts to put an end to the overfishing and destruction that we are causing.


"Kiribati is among the world's poorest countries. It has few natural resources other than fish and copra, the dried meat of coconut. It does however have of some of the world's most pristine coral reefs and healthiest fish stocks, which have now become the basis of its contribution to the well-being of the planet: the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA), which at 408,250 square kilometers is the largest marine World Heritage site. 

PIPA is part of President Tong's bigger, more ambitious initiative, the Pacific Oceanscape—38.5 million square kilometers (24 million square miles) of ocean, an area larger than the land territories of the United States, Canada and Mexico combined. Over the past two years, President Tong has brought together 16 Pacific Ocean nations to develop the initiative, which seeks to maintain ocean health by improving management of fisheries, protecting and conserving biodiversity, furthering scientific understanding of the marine ecosystem, and reducing the negative impacts of human activities.

President Tong's efforts in the face of incredible adversity has earned him considerable respect in the conservation world. Dr. Greg Stone, Chief Ocean Scientist and Senior Vice President for Marine Conservation at Conservation International, likens him to the "Teddy Roosevelt of Oceans," in that President Tong is doing for oceans what the 26th president did for land conservation in the United States around the turn of the 20th century."

"We must get away from the idea that one person, one action cannot make a difference. One million is 1+1+1 and so on. Every person and every action is important. The Pacific is one ocean. What you throw in the sea in California will end up on our shores. So we need to work together." - President Anote Tong


I wish there were more people like him in our country.

Spirobranchus feeding on a coral colony in Kiribati. So pretty.

Unda da sea

Who knew that coral reefs made sound? According to an article I was reading earlier, scientists are able to tell whether a reef is stressed or healthy based on the sound alone. How cool is that? When I think of ocean sounds I think of whales and dolphin communication, but little did I know that the fish and invertebrates actually produce noises in "clicks" and "grunts." When the sounds are low frequency, there is generally a larger fish population in the reef community, however if the sound is high frequency level there is a larger coral population.

What I really loved is that after studying fish one scientist observed that after weeks of being away from the reefs, fish were returning to find ones to settle into based on the sound. I think it's great that fish assess the situation before finding the neighborhood they wanna chill in. Too funny =)

Just a thought

Our world’s oceans not only cover seventy-one percent of the earth’s surfaces, but also contain ninety-seven percent of the earth’s water—the ocean is the central source of life. It maintains the stability of the earth’s climate, provides means of transportation, and draws attention to a great deal of the earth’s population for leisurely purposes. Humankind has the perception that the world’s oceans are infinite and indestructible, but what if people could no longer enjoy a beach getaway on their time off from work or school because the damage to the ocean was too great beyond repair? Something to think about. Below is a powerful video.

Fool's Gold

This has recently become one of my favorite lazy day songs and it's paired with this video. Perfect. The jellyfish at around 2:30 is badass.

Oil Wars

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/10/gulf-oil-spill/bourne-text

This is an extremely interesting article to me. It gets down to the nitty gritty as to what is really going on and the war mankind is fighting with the Earth.


"For decades the exorbitant costs of drilling deep kept commercial rigs close to shore. But shrinking reserves, spiking oil prices, and spectacular offshore discoveries ignited a global rush into deep water. Recent finds in Brazil's Tupi and Guará fields could make that country one of the largest oil producers in the world. Similarly promising deepwater leases off Angola have excited bidding frenzies involving more than 20 companies.
In the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Congress encouraged companies to go deep as early as 1995. That year it passed a law forgiving royalties on deepwater oil fields leased between 1996 and 2000. A fleet of new rigs was soon punching holes all over the Gulf at a cost of up to a million dollars a day each. The number of leases sold in waters half a mile deep or more shot up from around 50 in 1994 to 1,100 in 1997."

WHY?

"Since the early 2000s, reports from industry and academia warned of the increasing risk of deepwater blowouts, the fallibility of blowout preventers, and the difficulty of stopping a deepwater spill after it started—a special concern given that deepwater wells, because they're under such high pressure, can spout as much as 100,000 barrels a day."

---- "Congressional investigators and industry experts contend that BP cut corners on its cement job. It failed to circulate heavy drilling mud outside the casing before cementing, a practice that helps the cement cure properly. It didn't put in enough centralizers—devices that ensure that the cement forms a complete seal around the casing. And it failed to run a test to see if the cement had bonded properly. Finally, just before the accident, BP replaced the heavy drilling mud in the well with much lighter seawater, as it prepared to finish and disconnect the rig from the well. BP declined to comment on these matters, citing the ongoing investigation."

I wish that it was covered more that the way BP drilled was not legitimate and I get really sad when I read articles such as this. I follow the oil spill quite frequently with the investigative reports on Mother Jones, however, this is becoming a little ridiculous. This article talks more about BP's oil history as well as cites people that used to work for the corporation, which they talk about the lack of experience and the lies they have been feeding the public (YouTube channel, anyone?)

I think this is an absolutely great investigative piece on what is happening. It breaks my heart to know what is going on not only because of how many species have been affected but as well as humankind. Sad panda.

New ideas and new ecosystems

After its ten year long international research program, the Census of Marine Life has released a database, the Ocean Biogeographic Information System, a study of marine species in 25 key global ocean areas across the world in which they cataloged the biodiversity and distribution of marine life. 

What caught my attention is the fact that animals such as whales, turtles and walruses only account for about 2 percent of the known species in the 25 areas, whereas crustaceans account for a whopping 20 percent. It broke my heart to read that the "top 5" areas containing the widest range of species are areas such as the Meditteranean, China and the Gulf of Mexico which are also are most some of the most threatened areas in the world due to impacts such as pollution, overfishing and invasive species.

I came across this video and I found it interesting, so I thought I'd share it. The species pictured throughout the video blow my mind. Enjoy.