NOAA has teamed up with the Smithsonian Institute to bring the depths of the ocean to the National Mall, in Washington D.C. This past weekend, the Institute inaugurated the Sant Ocean Hall in the National Museum of Natural History: an exhibit that aims to raise awareness of the importance of the ocean and the effect of human activities on marine life. NOAA tells us about the exhibit:
Phoenix, a 45-foot model of a living North Atlantic Right Whale, serves as the Hall’s signature symbol. There are 10 sections in the hall that address a variety of ocean-related topics, including the deep ocean, coral reefs, the Arctic and Southern Oceans and current ocean research. The Coral Reef section has a 1,500-gallon aquarium featuring an Indo-Pacific reef with over 1,000 specimens of more than 50 different species of live fish and other marine life. The hall’s “Journey through Time” section looks into the past with fossils of a large number of ancient organisms; some are more than 500 million years old. In the exhibit’s theater, a 13-minute video, “Deep Ocean Explorers,” takes visitors on a dive through the zones of the open ocean to the deep ocean bottom aboard the submersible, Alvin.
The exhibit is a good fit that fills a void in both the Natural History Museum and others in the area. I will be sure to check that out next time I am over in our Nations Capital.
In other news, just a few hours north in New York, The Intrepid is finally making its way back to the West Side of New York City after two years from being hauled off for renovations. [Continue Reading →]
Tags: · deep_water, maritime_museum, museum_ships, Navy, noaa, ocean, oceans
The New York Times ran a great feature last week:
“What’s Making That Awful Racket? Surprisingly, It May Be Fish”
The article by Noony de la Pena covers the story of James Locascio, a doctoral student in Marine Science at the University of South Florida, who rescued the city of Cape Coral, Fl. from financial folly. Here’s an excerpt:
“Eerie Thumps Haunt Some Cape Residents,” a headline in The News-Press of Cape Coral, Fla., said. “Noise May Cost City Big Bucks.”
The retirees who had come to spend their winters relaxing on the gentle estuaries and canals of the Gulf Coast in Florida blamed the municipal utility system. They were pushing the City Council to pay an engineering firm more than $47,000 to eliminate the noise reverberating through their homes.
It was the end of January 2005, during the spawning season for a fish appropriately called the black drum. Nightly mating calls were at a crescendo. But no one living in the area seemed to realize the din was of aquatic origin.
The full post is at the New York Times, here.
___________________________
This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd of the net.
Tags: · oceanography, oceans
The Star Tribune points us to a new prehistoric discovery;
Remains of a bus-sized prehistoric “monster” reptile found on a remote Arctic island may be a new species never before recorded, researchers said Tuesday.
Initial excavation on the Svalbard islands, 300 miles north of Norway’s mainland, in August yielded the remains, teeth, skull fragments and vertebrae of a reptile estimated to measure nearly 40 feet long, said Joern Harald Hurum of the University of Oslo. It appears to be the same species as a sea predator whose remains were found nearby last year.
Hurum’s team described those 150-million-year-old remains as belonging to a short-necked plesiosaur measuring more than 30 feet — “as long as a bus … with teeth larger than cucumbers.” It was a voracious reptile often described as the Tyrannosaurus rex of the oceans.
CLICK HERE for the project team’s website.
Tags: · arctic_island, norway, oceans, predator, prehistoric_discovery, prehistoric_monster, Science, short_necked_plesiosaur, star_tribune, teeth, tyrannosaurus_rex, Uncategorized, university_of_oslo, vertebrae
Boing Boing and Cryptomundo bring us news of a new species of Killer Whale.
Revealing once again how little we know about our oceans’ inhabitants, researchers announced discovery of two new marine species, including a Dwarf Killer Whale in Antarctica and a new species of beaked whale in the tropical pacific. Loren Coleman has more over at Cryptomundo. From one of his posts about these animals:
The oceans hold many natural history treasures and wonders. New animals are being discovered at a faster rate from the seas than in freshwater or on land. But these finds from the marine environment often get little attention from Homo sapiens versus, say, a new giant peccary or a new monkey.
Overnight, famed marine biologist Bob Pitman shared with me breaking news about several new marine mammal species. The news will not get as much of a read as a fuzzy picture of a land mammal from the woods of Pennsylvania or of a rapid moving otter-like animal videotaped in Loch Ness. That’s a darn shame.
Link to “First Live Sightings of Shepherd’s Ziphiid,” Link to “New Species of Tropical Pacific Beaked Whale?,” Link to “Dwarf Killer Whale Discovered in Antarctica”
Tags: · antarctica, boing_boing, cryptomundo, dwarf, killer_whale, land_mammal, marine_biologist, marine_environment, marine_mammal_species, marine_species, oceans, Science, Uncategorized
