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Pleiosaur bones from Antarctica

Maybe there is something good about global warming after all. It makes the natural sciences seem important again, even daring in the face of calamity.

For example, Yahoo news reports an amazing tale of paleontologists battling 70 mph winds to rescue the bones of a baby Pleiosaur from the Antarctic ice.

Census of Marine Life

From the Scotsman.com

"Scientists want to study the deep-sea eco-system of plants and animals living in a 'halo' around the vent, to discover how, surrounded by near-freezing water, their chemistry allows them to withstand heat pulses that approach boiling point - up to 80C."

Big news on the WWW is all the findings found under the Census Of Marine Life in 2006. All the highlights we already covered so most of this is old news (Yeti Crab, Strange Decapod, etc.). The one exception and a true gem is how the scientists want to study the deep-sea plants. Probably not worth the time considering the deep-sea does host plants. But hey I will take some funding to look at it if someone is offering.

More doom and gloom

Is nothing good about global warming?

A recent study published in Nature shows reduced phythoplankton abundance under El Nino conditions, suggesting warmer (future) seas would be less productive. The ten year investigation by Behrenfeld et al also predicts greater stratification in the tropics, which could limit upwelling of deep nutrients.

Cosmos magazine covers the story under the headline "Plankton killed by warming."

Yikes. Can somebody stop the Earth, please? I want to get off.

Greenland Sharks

A Greenland shark can reaches sizes of 775kg (1708lbs) and 7.3m (24ft). Yes they're big. Individuals are typically deep dwellers, up to 2200m, roaming near the bottom. In colder months and in cold regions, they may come shallow into bays and river mouths. Greenland sharks are oppurtunisitc eaters, consuming fish, sharks, skates, seals and small cetaceans, sea birds, squids, crabs, amphipods, marine snails, brittle stars, sea urchins, and jellyfish. Yes they eat anything. In the last few years they have been found in Baie-Comeau at 10m during the summer.

"We really have no idea why they come to waters as shallow as 10 metres deep, why they return every summer so far, or what brought them here three years ago in the first place...Prey abundance is poor here and certainly not enough to justify so many large predators in one small area. We think it may have something to do with ecological shifts taking place in the St. Lawrence right now, or it could just be a sunken whale carcass nearby on the ocean floor that is attracting them."

image from National Geographic

Finally someone more pissed off than I

Yesterday in parliament...

"Fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw launched a strongly-worded attack on the scope and pace of international moves to end devastation caused by deep sea fishing. He expressed 'bitter' disappointment at the failure of the UN to agree 'truly significant' measures to combat the damage and he accused the international community of 'turning a blind eye' to the problem, warning that 'time is running out' for the delicate ecosystems affected."

Monsters from the Deep!

Fish dies after dragging boat
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-12-06 09:51

A huge deep-sea fish dragged a fishing boat over 37 kilometres on Saturday after it got caught in a net, eventually dying of exhaustion, in Shandong Province.

Xue, a fisherman from Jimo, said the crew noticed the enormous fish when the boat was suddenly shaken and pulled forward at high speed.

The boat stopped moving after four hours and the fishermen dragged the net ashore to find a 240-kilogram fish in it.

Xue sold the fish to a local museum for 43,000 yuan (US$5,493).