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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
 Posted - 03/22/2008 : 16:17:34
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"Large sea spiders, jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles, huge sea snails and starfish the size of big food platters were found during a 50-day voyage, marine scientist Don Robertson said." - from CNN story
"It's exciting when you come across a new species," said Chris Jones, a fisheries scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration." - CNN
It would be fun to see what some of these big critters look like.
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Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2008 : 17:23:53 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Chippewa
"Large sea spiders, jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles, huge sea snails and starfish the size of big food platters were found during a 50-day voyage, marine scientist Don Robertson said." - from CNN story
"It's exciting when you come across a new species," said Chris Jones, a fisheries scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration." - CNN
It would be fun to see what some of these big critters look like.
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It would indeed, but here's a sobering thought: colder waters have more nutrients and a higher oxygen content than tropical seas. And the oceans are warming.
Recently, a sign of climate change was seen in Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence. There was not enough ice to provide necessary habitat for thousands of baby harp seals, and nearly 100% of all pups born this year drowned. In Tasmania over the past 50 years, 20-80% of the east coast kelp forests have disappeared as they're surrounded by warmer, nutrient-poor waters. Scientists recently predicted that Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the only biological structure that can be seen by the naked eye from space, will be virtually dead within 30 years. As mentioned earlier, Arctic polar bears are facing extinction due to dramatic reductions of Arctic ice, a problem that will also threaten all Arctic wildlife. These terrible events, as they say, are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Bigger, more terrifying events are taking place. For example, corals are already under serious threat right now due to “bleaching” due to the seas growing warmer. A coral is a living animal, 80% of its energy is generated by photosynthesis via tiny algae within its body known as zoozanthellae. If environmental conditions change, the coral's defense is to expel the algae, which results in death of the coral. But this is not the only "hot water" corals face. |
The Ross Sea will not be exempt from this and will undergo the same changes.
That out of my system, for a while, this is an excellent study and I'm looking forward to more on it.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Giant Sea Creatures discovered says CNN
