Oceanographers exploring some of the most remote deep-sea hot springs ever found have discovered what they say is a “riot of life” in a distinct biological zone that no one knew existed.
Continue reading Whole new marine ecology discoverd at deep water antarctic vents
Source: BBC
A team of scientists has set out on a six-week mission, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, to explore the Indian Ocean’s underwater mountains, or seamounts.
Source: Aljazeera
From a climate change/fisheries/pollution/habitat destruction point of view, our nightmare is here, it’s the world we live in.”
This bleak statement about the current status of the world’s oceans comes from Dr Wallace Nichols, a Research Associate at the California Academy of Sciences. Al Jazeera asked Dr Nichols, along with several other ocean experts, how they see the effects climate change, pollution and seafood harvesting are having on the oceans.
Author: Brian Vastag
Source: Washington Post
Ensconced in a plexiglass bubble some 500 feet beneath the azure waves of the southern Caribbean Sea, Carole Baldwin spied a lumpy oddball of a flesh-colored fish. It looked like an anglerfish, also known as a sea toad. Yet Baldwin, one of the most experienced Caribbean fish specialists alive, had not seen this variety.
Continue reading Deep reef ‘twilight zones’ slowly yield their secrets to explorers
THE Irish-led VENTuRE scientific expedition aboard the national research vessel RV Celtic Explorer has discovered a previously uncharted field of hydrothermal vents along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge – the first to be explored north of the Azores.
Continue reading Uncharted hydrothermal vents discovered on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
The volcanoes were found near the U.K. territories of the South Georgia Islands and South Sandwich Islands (see map) during a monthlong mapping expedition, which used multibeam sonar to fill in a 370-mile (600-kilometer) by 90-mile (150-kilometer) gap in existing seabed maps.
Continue reading Giant Undersea Volcanoes Found Off Antarctica
Deep-sea corals area among the most vulnerable ecosystems and the United Nations has called for their protection. Most of these interesting communities have disappeared from large extensions of European waters and the Mediterranean due to bottom trawling, changes in water temperature or natural catastrophic events.
Hagfish, eel-like creatures known for secreting buckets of slime, are among the ocean’s most ancient species. They dwell on the ocean floor feeding on dead and dying sea life, filling an important ecological niche. Human activities, however, may be threatening their numbers and new research looks into the population decline of these shadowy creatures.
The seafloor is littered with underwater mountains, a new global survey has revealed.
Continue reading Seamounts: Undersea mountains ‘litter’ ocean floor
