NOAA and partners to survey marine life at USS Monitor wreck site

NOAA and partners to survey marine life at USS Monitor wreck site

NOAA will participate in a private research expedition to study marine life living on and around the wreck of the USS Monitor. The August 2-8 expedition is the first in the history of Monitor National Marine Sanctuary devoted specifically to understanding how the wreck contributes to the health of underwater creatures and plants living in sanctuary waters.

Using non-invasive techniques, divers will conduct an inventory of various species of fish, crustaceans, mollusks, jellyfish, corals, and sponges. The survey also will examine the population of lionfish on the wreck to determine if this fierce predator is harming the site's natural ecosystem.

"The information collected during this expedition will help us to better understand the role the historic shipwreck has played as an artificial reef and may be important to our efforts to continue preservation of the USS Monitor," said David W. Alberg, superintendent of USS Monitor National Marine Sanctuary.

The biological research will be conducted by dive teams from the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, the Outer Banks Dive Center, Ocean Explorer Charters, and Associated Design. The data collected will be analyzed by the Smithsonian Institution's Marine Botany Department.

"It is vital that we can better understand the wreck as a reef as we move forward in determining how best to manage the Monitor sanctuary," said Jeff Johnston, historian for Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. "The collaboration of private citizens and a state and federal agency working together to gain a better understanding of one of America's most significant ships is a great story in itself."

The USS Monitor is located in 240 feet of water 16 miles south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, where the ship sank on a stormy New Year's Eve in 1862. In an effort to protect the nation's most famous ironclad, the shipwreck was designated Monitor National Marine Sanctuary in January 1975. In the late 1990's through 2002, several iconic Monitor artifacts were recovered and are being conserved at The Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Va.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources. Visit http://www.noaa.gov.

Indian Ocean island votes to become fully French

Indian Ocean island votes to become fully French

PARIS (Reuters) - Voters on Mayotte, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, chose by referendum Sunday to become a fully fledged part of France -- a change of status that will end local traditions such as polygamy and Islamic courts.

Authorities said 95.2 percent of those who voted opted to turn Mayotte into a "departement," strengthening ties with Paris and requiring the island to align itself with French law. Only 4.8 percent voted no. Participation was 61 percent.

Mayotte, 400 km (250 miles) east of Mozambique and 300 km west of Madagascar, is in the Comoros archipelago but voted against independence in referendums in 1974 and 1976.

Instead it stayed French, with a status allowing legal differences from the mainland.

It has a population of about 186,000 people, of whom 95 percent are Sunni Muslims. Many do not speak French and a third of the population are illegal migrants, mostly from the nearby islands which make up the independent Comoran state.

"This will reinforce the place of Mayotte in the republic, reaffirming our founding values, particularly equality between men and women, the same justice for all, and the place of the French language," said Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.

Many islanders were keen to boost ties with mainland France, which have kept Mayotte richer and more stable than the Comoros.

"We may be black, poor and Muslim, but we have been French longer than Nice," Abdoulatifou Aly, a legislator from Mayotte, was quoted as saying in the French weekly L'Express.

President Nicolas Sarkozy had promised a referendum during his 2007 campaign. After Sunday's vote, the island is on track to become France's 101st departement in 2011.

The referendum follows unrest in another French overseas departement, the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, which was rocked by a general strike for pay rises in February and March.

That suggests that becoming a departement will be no panacea for Mayotte, where unemployment runs at more than 25 percent.

The islanders stand to gain economically from the change of status, as they will become eligible for a wider range of social benefits as well as EU funds. Paris has also promised an economic development fund to boost the island's infrastructure.

However, residents will see their tax bills increase and have to abandon certain customs to conform to French law.

For now, men can have several wives whom they can repudiate unilaterally, and women do not have equal inheritance rights. The island has a traditional Islamic justice system with "qadis" or religious scholars who act as judges.

Mayotte will have to ban polygamy, raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 from 15 years old, and give women equal rights.

The Islamic justice system will be replaced by secular courts, though qadis will retain a consultative role.

Hurricanes not likely to disrupt ocean carbon balance

Hurricanes not likely to disrupt ocean carbon balance

Observations in Bermuda and the Caribbean in the 1990s noted that hurricanes' powerful winds and the resultant water mixing can trigger enhanced carbon dioxide release from the ocean into the air. Large-scale extrapolations of these observations suggested that increasing numbers of hurricanes could significantly alter the overall carbon balance of the ocean and atmosphere.

However, a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison indicates that storm-induced carbon release is local and temporary and does not seem to affect the long-term ability of the tropical Atlantic to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. The study has been accepted to publish in an upcoming issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"The suggestion was that an increase in hurricanes might reduce the ocean's effectiveness in being a carbon sink, and therefore enhance global warming," says Galen McKinley, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and affiliate of the Center for Climatic Research at UW-Madison.

Her new study suggests otherwise.

Some carbon dioxide is naturally released from the ocean each year and the amount varies over space and seasons, McKinley says. With colleagues Jennifer Koch, Val Bennington and David Ullman, she adapted an ocean circulation model to capture this variability and ask whether total carbon release increased in years with high hurricane activity.

When they applied their model across a 15-year time period (1992-2006) and the entire subtropical North Atlantic basin, where most hurricanes develop, they found no relationship between the number of hurricanes and amount of carbon dioxide released in a year.

"There is a large efflux of carbon locally during a hurricane," McKinley explains. "But when we think about that at a large scale and over the entire year, the effect goes away."

The ocean is the single largest carbon sink on the planet, meaning it absorbs and stores more atmospheric carbon long-term than anything else.

"Since the Industrial Revolution, about half of the carbon humans have emitted has gone into the ocean, which has significantly damped global warming to date," says McKinley. "However, now the ocean can only take up about 25 percent of our emissions and this rate appears to be declining, so we need to understand in detail the processes that control the ocean carbon budget."

Based on their modeling results, McKinley believes a potential increase in hurricanes — currently forecasted by many climate scientists — would not have much effect on the ocean's ability to absorb atmospheric carbon. Other factors, such as wind, biological activity, and the total amounts of carbon present in the ocean and air will likely play a larger role in determining the overall carbon balance.

"We still have a lot to learn about how natural climate variations affect things like the ocean's uptake of carbon," McKinley says. "We need to understand that if we're going to understand and predict future global warming."

Provided by UW-Madison

Amazing Sea Creatures..

Amazing Sea Creatures.. | Supiri.com

A fish with a transparent head

Here are some amazing once in a life time picture collection of sea creatures..Truly amazing..

The world's oceans cover two thirds of Earth's surface. There are many animal species virtually unheard of since the depth were they are located it makes it impossible for people to document them. The deep sea is about 78% of the planet's inhabitable volume, fascinating people all over the world about rare or unknown sea creatures.

Modern research has shown that, despite the pitch-blackness of the water, the freezing cold, and the crushing pressure, some amazing and bizarre creatures have adapted to life in the depths of the sea.

Mane attraction: The dwarf lionfish hides on reefs to ambush prey

Broody: A gold specs jawfish with its eggs

Technicolour battle: A harlequin shrimp and a starfish (left) and a harlequin filefish

Sucker punch: The venom of the blue-ringed octopus can kill a man

Purple patch: Mating sea slugs lay an egg spiral

What a sight! A close-up reveals the sophisticated eye of a cuttlefish

A real slugger: This Indonesian sea slug has exposed gills and sensory 'horns', acquiring vivid colours from reef life it devours

Pink anemone fish are protected from their host's stings by a layer of mucus

April 15, 2008 - Flat faced anglerfish

The world's oceans cover two thirds of Earth's surface. There are many animal species virtually unheard of since the depth were they are located it makes it impossible for people to document them. The deep sea is about 78% of the planet's inhabitable volume, fascinating people all over the world about rare or unknown sea creatures.

Modern research has shown that, despite the pitch-blackness of the water, the freezing cold, and the crushing pressure, some amazing and bizarre creatures have adapted to life in the depths of the sea.

March 1, 2009 - Giant Stringray

Not described by science until only 20 years ago, the giant stingray is believed to be the largest freshwater species in the world.  The fellow above is about 13 feet in diameter and was photographed in Cambodia's Mekong River.  It has been known to pull small boats along the river. I would imagine that the habitat of these amazing rays will be threatened as humans continue to exploit freshwater resources. You can read more about this creature below.

May 2, 2008 - Frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus)

 Somewhat rare, deep water "living fossil" with primitive morphology, such as a fixed upper jaw. The species reportedly feeds in caves or crevices and may have the  longest known gestation period of any animal (3.5 years).
Photographed alive in Japan, January 2007.

March 16, 2008 - Long-nosed chimaera (rhinochimaeridae) You probably remember the name from Greek mythology, Chimera is a fire-breathing female monster with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail. Today, Chimera is a deep-ocean relative of sharks and ray, being often referred to as a ghost shark. Even though it is not as threatening as its fellow shark, the chimaera has a spine on the back that is highly toxic. A drop of venom can kill a man, but this case is highly unlikely since they live at depths of 8,000 feet.March 27, 2008 - Giant starfish from Antarctic waters

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 09, 2008 White killer whale March 09, 2008 - Live giant squid

March 09, 2008 - Bathynomus giganteus-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathynomus_giganteus

March 09, 2008 - Octopus with six tentacles

March 09, 2008 - Blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus)

March 1, 2008 - Furry lobster (Kiwa hirsuta)

Goblin shark

Another shark makes the list of the most peculiar sea animals. The Goblin shark is extremely rare, found only in deep water off Japan, South Africa, or Portugal. It has a very unusual snout, very pointed and flat. It is found in depths of about 3,940 feet (1,200 m) and believed to be harmless. Scientists think the snout's main purpose is to help the shark find food in deep, dark waters. There is little to be said about the shark since it has rarely been seen by humans and little data is recorded.

Box Jellyfish

Described as one of the deadliest of all sea creatures, this type of jellyfish is famous for having an amazing defensive mechanism: it has 60 tentacles, with a length of up to 10 feet, packed with thousands of stinging cells that are activated when they touch the human skin. They deliver such an excruciating pain that the person attacked goes into shock and drowns. Their venom is considered to be among the most deadly in the world, containing toxins that attack the heart, nervous system, and skin cells.

Gulper Eel

With a huge mouth and large tail used to catch its prey, this eel is one of the most bizarre looking creatures in the sea. Their wide jaws and elastic stomach make it possible for the eel to swallow fish bigger than them. They live at about 10,000 feet beneath the sea and can grow up to 80 cm in length. Usually found in all of the world's oceans at depths ranging from 3000 to 6000 feet, this eels have been brought to surface in fishing nets with their long tails tied into several knots.

Pygmy SeaHorse

This is the smallest sea horse in the world, reaching at maturity the size of a grain of rice. It is tiny, rarely reaching 15mm in length. There are very few things known about this seahorse, but scientists discovered that they eat the same zooplankton as the seafans that they inhabit. Still, seahorse numbers are diminishing, since they are used to treat sexual dysfunctions or consumed in Asia, roughly 45 tons of dried seahorses annually.

Salps

Probably more common than the rest of the other sea animals in the list, the tube-like creatures have a very important role in fighting the negative effects of global warming. It has been discovered that salps feed on the carbon-dioxide soaked algae from the oceans. Scientists that made this discovery are planning on increasing the algae-eating salp population in the world's oceans by boosting its food supply. According to their estimations, sequester nearly a third of manmade CO2 annually.

March 10, 2009 - A fish with a transparent head (Macropinna microstoma)

This fish has apparently been known for some time, but its unusual ability to rotate its eyes within its transparent head to look at objects above it was only recently reported in the journal Copeia in late 2008.  This adaptation is likely due to the dark environment in which this fish lives. You can read more about this fish here.

Moscow’s New Arctic Policy Likely to Exacerbate Tensions in the Region

georgiandaily.com - Moscow's New Arctic Policy Likely to Exacerbate Tensions in the Region

The Russian government's policy paper on Arctic policy, which was prepared last year, confirmed by President Dmitry Medvedev in September, but published only at the end of last week, sets the stage for intense competition between the Russian Federation and other Arctic powers as well as between the center and Russia's northern regions.

 

The 2900-word paper, now available on the website of the Russian security council (www.scrf.gov.ru/documents/98.html), outlines in broad-brush terms Moscow's interests, concerns, and goals in the Arctic for the next decade, but both its thrust and certain specific provisions point to problems ahead both internationally and domestically.

The reason for the delay in the publication of this document is unknown, but the reasons for its being posted online now seem clear: The Russian government is concerned about a Norwegian-led "Cold Response" military exercise and about Denmark's call for an international conference of Arctic powers (kommersant.ru/doc.aspx).

To the extent that is the case, the document has both diplomatic and propagandistic purposes and thus contains many bows to ecological concern and the need for cooperation of all parties. But three aspects of the paper point to possible tensions ahead both among these powers and within the Russian Federation.

First, the paper specifies that Moscow views the Arctic as "a strategic resource base of the Russian Federation, which will guarantee the resolution of the tasks of the social-economic development of the country." In short, the Russian government wants to exploit the oil and gas deposits on the seabed.

Given declining production in many Russian fields, a boost from production in this region would play a key role both in Russia's economic development and in its geopolitical approach, and given global warming, Moscow has particular interest in staking its claim to control of newly opening shipping lanes.

Second, while it contains the usual call for international cooperation and negotiation on all issues, the new policy paper makes clear that Moscow intends to have a strong military and security presence in the region in order to be able to press its claims to a very large swath of the extreme North.

On the one hand, the document says that the Russian government will create "groups of forces of general assignment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, as well as other forces, military units and organs (in the first case the border organs) in the Arctic zone of the RF capable of guaranteeing military security in various military-political situations."

And on the other hand, the new policy paper says that Moscow plans to increase the role of the FSB in controlling the Arctic zone, even as it talks about using central Russian government funds to improve the standard of living in this enormous but thinly populated part of the country.

The first of these directions will exacerbate tensions with other Arctic powers. For a discussion of the different views of these powers on the Arctic and on the ways in which this could change the military balance in the Far North, see the discussion of these issues contained in an article posted last week at www.chaskor.ru/p.php.

But the second is likely to create some domestic problems, providing a government declaration that peoples in this region are certain to refer to as they press for more assistance and one that many in the region are likely to take as an indication that they will be subject to far more control by the security agencies than at any time since the Soviet period.

But just how far the Russian government will move to implement this policy paper is far from clear. Many times, Moscow has announced a policy and then not proceeded to take action. This time, however, the document in question suggests that Russia's future is on the line depending on what it does in the Arctic.

And that stress in turn suggests that the Russian government will take some of the steps indicated, especially in the security area, thereby lending support to headlines in Russian media on Friday and Saturday suggesting that a new "Cold War" is really beginning in one of the earth's already coldest places.