shipwrecks
Get into the spirit of Adventure: 10 Expeditions to follow in 2019
The Aquarius Project: The First Student-Driven Underwater Meteorite Hunt
Pirates! Robots! Meteors! A team of plucky teenage explorers! If this doesn’t end up as a feature film, I’ll eat my red watch cap.
On Monday, February 6, 2017 a meteorite dropped out of space and dropped right into Lake Michigan. Since then, a team of young explorers sponsored by the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium have been combing the lake for the lost meteorite. Catch up with this epic adventure through their podcast and on OpenExplorer. The search continues into 2019.
Iceland’s Shallow Hydrothermal Vents
Not all hydrothermal vents emerge in the deep sea. Of the coast of Iceland, shallow water vent spew forth their hydrothermal plumes in the shallows, where small underwater robots can easy access. You’d think we’d know more about them than their deep ocean counterparts but we actually know less.
Iceland’s Shallow Hydrothermal Vents hopes to fill in some of our understanding of these weird and wonderful ecosystems.
Search for Slave Shipwrecks
On a hot summer day in the murky waters of the man-made Millbrook Quarry in Northern Virginia, a group of about 25 people outfitted in scuba gear take turns going down to a depth of 30 feet, testing their compass reading skills, flooding their masks and practicing emergency ascents without air. The sight is not so unusual since Millbrook is the main training and certification site for scuba divers in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area and often hosts such groups. What might give folks pause, however, is that upon closer look they may notice that all 25 of the divers are African American. And if they chat with this unexpected bunch, they might also find that a majority are certified and qualified to search for, document and help excavate slave trade shipwrecks.
Search for Slave Shipwrecks
Divers with Purpose and the Slave Wrecks Project will be traveling across Africa and the Caribbean documenting the stories of underwater archaeologists working to preserve the history of the Atlantic slave trade buried at sea.
Saving the Great Barrier Reef, bolt cutters, bulk cutters, beak scars, and more! Monday Morning Salvage, August 27, 2018.
Foghorn (A Call to Action!)
- Do you have a novel idea that could help save the world’s reefs? Sign up for the Out of the Blue Box Reef Innovation Challenge!
Out of the Blue Box is a global search for new ideas to strengthen the recovery of our iconic Great Barrier Reef. We are calling for solutions to the challenges facing the Great Barrier Reef, and reefs all over the world, to fast-track projects that will have an immediate and lasting impact.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- oceanbites has great three part series on undergraduate research.
- Conservation and climate change needs fewer aisle-crossing compromisers and more Haydukes. Courage and Bolt Cutters: Meet the next generation of climate activists.
- I’ve been excited about these observations for years. Really ecited to finally see them in the peer-reviewed literature: Beaked whales may frequent a seabed spot marked for mining.
L. MARSH, V. HUVENNE AND D. JONES/ROY. SOC. OPEN SCIENCE 2018
Bone-eating Jabba worms, the world’s deepest plastic bag, new shipwrecks, climate change art, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 14, 2018.
Foghorn (A Call to Action!)
- Yale study: Newspaper op-eds change minds and The Long-lasting Effects of Newspaper Op-Eds on Public Opinion. Scientists and conservationists, this May, make an effort to publish a Letter to the Editor or OpEd in your local paper. If you’ve done so, please leave a link to it in the comments.
- How to save the high seas: As the United Nations prepares a historic treaty to protect the oceans, scientists highlight what’s needed for success.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- No commentary needed: Eyeless, Mouthless, Bone-Eating Worm Named After Jabba the Hutt.
Osedax worms growing on the vertebrae of a dead whale.
Photo: 2006 MBARI
- Every ocean, every dive, every time, trash: Plastic Bag Found at the Bottom of World’s Deepest Ocean Trench.
Hagfish, chill Puffins, swamp monsters, the mining boat floats, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: April 2, 2018
Foghorn (A Call to Action!)
- Want to help stem the tide of misinformation online and off? Do you have it all figured out and just need resources to implement your world-saving solution? The Rita Allen Foundation is looking for Solutions to Curb the Spread of Misinformation.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Hagfish. Tough. Lovable. Slimy. But not too slimy. Hagfish Take Weeks to Recover from Sliming Someone.
- Kevin D’Angelo integrated the OpenCTD with a new protocol for detecting salinity using the gold pins of a microUSB controller and I am blown away! Outstanding work.
- This is a puffin wearing sunglasses for science.
The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)
- Installed as a beacon of hope for a hurricane-racked island, the statue had to be moved multiple times due to the eroding coast: Our Lady of the Sea by Russel Arnott.
- Russell also created these outstanding posters to warn us away from Louisiana’s famed and fearsome swamp ghosts:
Beware the Feu Follet, by Russell Arnott
Bone-eating zombie worms, octopus overlords, old wooden ships and new woes for deep-sea mining. It’s the Monday Morning Salvage! January 1, 2018.
Fog Horn (A Call to Action)
- Stop. Breathe. Take a step back. This can all be incredibly overwhelming. Pick the fight that matters most to you and take a few days deciding what success looks like, what strategies will work, and what tactics are available to you. And then hoist your flag and get to work.
- And when you meet someone fighting a different fight, remember to support them. There are already enough fronts to advance without taking friendly fire from our flanks.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Maybe it’s time to seriously consider just giving control of the world to the cephalopods. A New Species of Giant Octopus Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight.
The frilled giant Pacific octopus. Photo Courtesy D. Scheel
- The most depressing annual run-down on the environmental science web: The Animals That Went Extinct in 2017.
How to help Houston, GameBoy SONAR, buy a lighthouse, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: August 28, 2017
Fog Horn (A Call to Action)
- Hurricane Harvey is sitting over the city of Houston, dumping biblical amounts of rain and flooding nearly the entire metropolitan area. There’s lots of great organizations to donate to, but in the immediate aftermath, it’s often best to donate to local relief programs that already have a ground team in place, rather than national groups that will take weeks to build up their infrastructure. I’m a fan of the Texas Diaper Bank and Portlight Inclusive Disaster Strategies, both of which serve communities that tend to be particularly vulnerable during natural disasters.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Dr. Katharine Hayhoe has become one of the most important voices in Climate Change over the last few years. Her latest, I was an Exxon-funded climate scientist, is a sober look at who where the money really goes and who pulls the strings in the climate change denial industry.
- Bandai and Nintendo once made a SONAR that runs on a GameBoy Pocket, and I want one. Has anyone ever encountered one of these rare and wondrous techno chimeras?
Unflappable Mola Molas, a Cousteau biopic, sharkcats, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: August 21, 2017
Fog Horn (A Call to Action)
- Gratuitous self-plug alert! There’s still a few chance left to get your own Unflappable Mola Mola sticker, but they’re going fast. For this and the rest of the Jaunty Ocean Critter series, subscribe to my Patreon campaign and help keep Southern Fried Science and Oceanography for Everyone running!
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Happy Eclipse Day! If you’ve ever wondered what happens in the sea during an eclipse, Rebecca Helm at Deep Sea News has you covered!
- This is an utterly amazing video of Blue Whale feeding behavior. Kudos to Slate, who went with the headline “Krill Joy“.
- “Thirty years ago, I discovered a new world. I wanted to conquer it when I should have protected it. It’s not too late.” An uncompromising Jacques Cousteau biopic starring Lambert Wilson? Yes, please!
Jetsam (what we’re enjoying from around the web)
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It’s #JacquesWeek! Also, lots of other ocean things happened last week. Monday Morning Salvage: July 24, 2017
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- #JacquesWeek! It’s Jacques Week! Join us all week long as we watch and discuss classic Cousteau documentaries.
- This incredible interactive map of deep-sea mining sites, associated ecosystems, and the threats they face, from the Royal Society. And, while we’re on the topic of Deep-sea Mining, I am Wilderness just launched the DSM Observer to track all the latest developments in deep-sea mining.
- A whale making a rainbow. Share the love.
Here’s what top science news stories of the year listicles said are the top marine science news stories of the year
Year-in-review news roundups are one of my favorite parts of December. I really enjoy remembering all of the interesting and inspiring things that happened over the past year, especially after a rough year like this one. I especially enjoy “top science news of the year” roundups, and I was pleased to see marine science stories make the cut on many of them. For your “but why is this considered a top story but that isn’t” debating pleasure, here are the marine science news stories that made top science news stories of the year listicles!