Manus Basin – Southern Fried Science

Valuing the deep sea, send @mcmsharksxx to Antarctica, deep-sea mining takes a dive, explore Kiribati, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 9, 2018

July 9, 2018July 9, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Melissa Márquez is fundraising to participate in a women-in-science leadership retreat that culminates in a 2.5 week trip to Antarctica. Help her out! Or back her Patreon!
The scandal-plagued, utterly ineffective, Scott Pruitt is out, just days after an American patriot told him exactly how she felt about him in a restaurant. Good.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Investing in indigenous communities is most efficient way to protect forests, report finds. This should surprise no one but it often does.
Explore the deep waters around Kiribati with OpenExplorer!

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Virtual Reality Preserves Disappearing Land: Coastal communities are capturing their cultures and landscapes in virtual reality before sea level rise steals them for good.
Where Did the Oil Go In the Gulf of Mexico? a storymap.

Deep-sea mining goes to court, a year in climate reporting, oyster-adorned singers, and more! The Monday Morning Salvage: December 11, 2017.

December 11, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

2017 Year in Climate. It’s been a wild, woolly years of climate highs and policy lows.
Fossils of Congress, featuring real, non-elected fossils, found around DC, might be my new favorite thing.

https://fossilsofcongress.tumblr.com/post/168190045787/the-discs-are-pieces-of-crinoid-stem-crinoid-a

Updates from the Deep: New and Noteworthy in Hydrothermal Vent Research

January 10, 2012January 12, 2012 Andrew Thaler 7 Comments

Conservation, Science

From hairy-chested yeti crabs to the deepest known fields, hydrothermal vents have been enjoying a bit of science celebrity in the last few weeks. Beneath the headlines, there has been an eruption of vent-related research published in the scientific literature and some exciting new expeditions just left port.

The Discovery of New Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Communities in the Southern Ocean and Implications for Biogeography

'Hoff' crabs in paradise. Image from ChEss Southern Ocean Consortium

The exhaustive author list on this paper reads like a who’s who in hydrothermal vent biogeography. This is the paper that introduced “the Hoff” crab to the world, but the findings are far more significant. Hydrothermal vent systems are sorted into biogeographic provinces, with different regions supporting different communities. The iconic giant tube worms dominate the eastern Pacific, while the western Pacific (prominently featured in Deep Fried Sea) plays host to fist sized snails, and the Atlantic features shrimp as its dominant species. There are several missing gaps in our understanding of how these qualitatively different communities are connected – the Southern Ocean, the south Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the Cayman Trough, among others. Filling in these gaps in our knowledge can help us understand the history and evolution of hydrothermal vent ecosystems.