Sapere Aude
Tag: oceanography
The wreck of Columbus’ Santa Maria is still undiscovered.
A UNESCO mission of experts has concluded that a shipwreck near Haiti, cannot have been the flagship of Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to America. The mission was requested by the Haitian Government, following claims earlier this year by an American explorer that he had found the remains of the Santa Maria.
jellyfish are at least 500 ma old, some are immortal, and: If I offered evidence that jellyfish are displacing penguins in Antarctica — not someday, but today — what would you think? If I suggested that jellyfish could crash the world’s fisheries, outcompete the tuna and swordfish, and starve the whales to extinction, would you believe me?
an estimated 1000 sailors die per year (2 large ships / week) to bring us global trade.
It looked almost like a landfill in some areas. Containers had split like dropped melons, spewing cargo: remote-control boats, golf clubs, frozen lobster tails, bicycles, 1000s of plastic air fresheners. A few days into the salvage operation, the stink of rotting seafood got so foul that Austin swiped an air freshener, cracked it open, and rubbed the fragrance cartridge on his mustache.
a ‘marine garden’ of 180k km2 could provide enough protein for the entire world. Such a sea lettuce bed would raise the pH of the Mediterranean Sea by 10%, enough to compensate for the rise in acidity that started with the industrial revolution.
map of pirate and hijacking activity off the Somali coast from January to December 2007
2008-11-19:
TO BOARD the Sirius Star, one of the world’s largest oil tankers, Somali pirates had to haul themselves up ropes tied to grapnel hooks the height of London’s Big Ben, with the 330m ship pitching all the while in the tropical swell. Then there was the location, way out in the high seas, 800km off the coast of Kenya. The feat of vertiginous thuggery will be taken everywhere as proof of what is possible; it was the biggest ever catch by any pirate, anywhere in the world.
arr! how about a pirates of the comoros. starring johnny depp?
an estimated 1m ships have sunk
To assert sovereignty over its submerged continental shelf, a nation has to map multiple off-shore points. Among them: the area where the ocean depth drops to 2500 meters, and the place where a country’s land mass drops off to become seafloor, a spot called the foot of the continental slope. Conservative estimates suggest that a new set of boundaries could cause the US to “grow” by 1m km2, and the oil, gas, and other resources contained in that area could be worth $1.3 trillion.
its all about the continental shelf
Also known as the “Dumbo octopus”, the Grimpoteuthis is a benthic mollusc found on the ocean floor at depths of 300-400 meters.
japan and others trying to create artificial islands to hack maritime law
From new sources of energy and nutritious food to limitless biodiversity and potential settlement sites the ocean is the last great unexploited frontier on earth. This blog is a window into that future.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 