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Tag: Belize

Logs from a majestic pit of acid: Diving Belize’s Blue Hole with Erika Bergman.

Posted on February 5, 2019February 21, 2019 By Erika Bergman
Logs from a majestic pit of acid: Diving Belize’s Blue Hole with Erika Bergman.
Uncategorized

In November of 2018 Aquatica Submarines shipped a three person submarine, Stingray 500, across frosty North America on the back of a truck then over the rolling winter seas of the Gulf of Mexico to Belize aboard the R/V Brooks McCall. Our destination was a site located 7 miles into Lighthouse Reef – a perfect sinkhole in the ocean known as the Great Blue Hole. We traveled to this UNESCO World Heritage site to explore and document a geologic phenomenon in support of conservation science and to conduct outreach. Our mission was two fold, map the Great Blue Hole using high resolution sonar and take people worldwide on this journey with us on broadcast TV. Everything we collected, from CTD data and dissolved oxygen content, to video footage and experiential data, gives us the fodder we need to tell a story about an unusual place on our planet most people have never seen, until now.

Photo courtesy Aquatica Submarines.

Geology from not-a-geologist

Over the past 14,000 years the polar ice caps, formed during the last glacial maximum, have thawed and raised sea level in steps. These defrosting events are captured in a stone record of an oceanic sinkhole in Belize. The aptly named Great Blue Hole is a collapsed cave, filled with stalactite caverns, and built up from layers of fine limestone and rougher calcium carbonate walls. The stepped rise of sea level can be seen in the form of terraces carved deeply by erosion into the otherwise vertical rock walls. Straight vertical stretches of wall are free of erosion because sea level rose rapidly during a few brief decades between each step. As each melting event took place sea level rose dramatically, as much as 100 feet in 100 years, followed by centuries of stability. Preserved from the disturbance of time, and isolated in the darkness, the hole holds clues to a very natural part of our planet’s life cycle. It’s these terraces and stalactites we set out to map.

Photo courtesy Aquatica Submarines.

Read More “Logs from a majestic pit of acid: Diving Belize’s Blue Hole with Erika Bergman.” »

Hagfish, hagfish, hagfish, hagfish, the social value of a hydrothermal vent, more ways plastic booms could kill the ocean, and hagfish. Monday Morning Salvage: January 28, 2019.

Posted on January 28, 2019January 27, 2019 By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

It’s all hagfish today, baby!


Hagfish appear to use slime to avoid predators like sharks (top) and large fish (bottom). The images above are from videos showing fish eating a hagfish, which then produces slime and is able to escape (Images from wikimediacommons).
  • No One Is Prepared for Hagfish Slime
  • Found: The First Fossil of the Slime-Spewing Hagfish and ‘Like finding a sneeze’: fossil identified as 100m-year-old hagfish.
  • Slime, baby, slime!

Read More “Hagfish, hagfish, hagfish, hagfish, the social value of a hydrothermal vent, more ways plastic booms could kill the ocean, and hagfish. Monday Morning Salvage: January 28, 2019.” »

Sinking squid, salmon-eating seals, and rebounding cod: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, January 18th 2018

Posted on January 18, 2018January 19, 2018 By David Shiffman
Uncategorized

Cuttings (short and sweet): 

  • Follow Dr. Toby Daly-Engel’s shark research lab on twitter!
  • Cod catch at an all-time low, but a rebound could be near. By Patrick Whittle, for the Associated Press.
  • Right whale died from fishing gear. From CBC News

Read More “Sinking squid, salmon-eating seals, and rebounding cod: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, January 18th 2018” »

#JacquesWeek, Lionfish tax, coral that glows, accelerating climate change, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 10, 2017

Posted on July 10, 2017July 12, 2017 By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

  • Protect the Outer Continental Shelf! Last week, the president announced a plan to open up significant portions of the outer continental shelf for oil and gas exploration. Call you representative! The public comment period opens today and runs through August 17. We’ll have a template script prepped for your use this week.
  • Today is the day to submit public comments to defend America’s National Monuments! More than 1 million comments have been submitted so far, and from my cursory survey, almost all of them are in favor of protecting these gems of American history and nature. Submit formal public comments on the DOI Monument Review and make your voice heard.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

  • #JacquesWeek! It’s coming! Only two weeks to go!

  • Tangier Island. I’m still thinking a lot about the Island out of Time.

Read More “#JacquesWeek, Lionfish tax, coral that glows, accelerating climate change, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 10, 2017” »

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