Returning to the Abyss

Ocean ‘X Factor’ to reach deepest point will net £6m.

Fifty years ago today two men sealed themselves inside a tiny steel sphere and were lowered over the side of a ship in the Western Pacific. For the next four hours they dropped steadily down through the ocean depths. A porthole cracked, shaking the craft, but they continued. Within another hour they reached the deepest point in the ocean, 11 kilometres down.

No human has returned since then, prevented by the high cost and technological challenges of withstanding the crushing pressures in the deep. But later this year the X Prize foundation will offer at least $10 million (£6 million) for the first privately funded craft to make two repeat visits to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.

According to Francis Beland, a senior adviser for the Ocean X Prize, among the likely contenders are Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, and James Cameron, the director of Titanic, The Abyss and Avatar. Both men are passionate about ocean exploration.

BB-Films comment: Coming soon via live feed to an Imax theatre near you!

From Times online: Full Article

Is there still time to save the seas?

The ocean is acidifying and coral reefs are dying. And it will only get worse until we rein in our emissions.

[BB-films note: from time to time I think it's worth stepping back and thinking about how we are amongst the last generation of divers that are going to be able to enjoy the World's oceans as they are today. Given the predictably pathetic lack of global consensus and infantile bickering over agreed effective combined actions at the UN summit in Copenhagen, the sad but true answer is that it is now (and perhaps has been for some time) too late to avoid widespread and permanent catastrophic changes to the World's oceans and seas. What's left for us now is to dive them, enjoy them, document them and teach our grandchildren about our experiences of a natural wonder that they can no longer enjoy, in part, thanks to us. The upside is that the faster we speed our impending extinction, the faster the planet can get back to equilibrium and the next cycle of life can begin.]

The glistening back of a whale sends ripples across the surface of the Arctic Ocean. Terns wheel overhead, while in the crisp, clear water beneath, tiny translucent sea snails flap their feet like butterfly wings against a shimmering backdrop of fish. The ocean is boundless, timeless and about as far away from Man as it’s possible to get. But not far enough.

The waters of the Arctic are changing faster than anywhere else on the planet. Glaciers are melting ever quicker and the sea ice is retreating, but these are only the physical effects of the fumes pouring from humanity’s smokestack. Our emissions are shifting the ocean’s chemistry too, and the combination is shaking the very foundations of its biology.

Just as ocean currents encircle the world, so too will these transformations. By mid-century the reefs shielding the Maldives will be eroding faster than they can grow. And out beyond the reefs’ ash-grey remains, a still more sinister threat will be reaching up from the depths.

Standing on a clifftop gazing out at the wild sea, it’s easy to feel the ocean’s power to recharge. Marine life is at once the lungs and the kidneys of the planet, providing half its oxygen, recycling its nutrients and absorbing its waste. Take a deep breath of that fresh sea air, and your chest swells with the scent of ocean life.

If the UN summit in Copenhagen ends with more half-hearted commitments, come the middle of the century you — and the other 80 per cent of the world’s population who live within 100km of the coast — had better think twice before drinking in that sea breeze. The characteristic scent is the product of microscopic, surface-dwelling plankton, but rival species are on the rise. A lungful of their fragrance leaves not the feeling of freedom but toxic irritation.

From The Times Online.
Full Article here.

Thank you President Toribiong (Palau)

President Johnson Toribiong of the tiny Pacific replublic of Palau is to create the world’s first “shark sanctuary”, banning all commercial shark fishing in its waters.

With half of the world’s oceanic sharks at risk of extinction, conservationists regard the move as “game-changing”.

It will protect about 600,000 sq km (230,000 sq miles) of ocean, an area about the size of France. President Toribiong will also call for a global ban on shark-finning, the practice of removing the fins at sea.

“These creatures are being slaughtered and are perhaps at the brink of extinction unless we take positive action to protect them,” said President Toribiong.

“Their physical beauty and strength, in my opinion, reflects the health of the oceans; they stand out,”

From BBC News

Gallery: Satellite view of Bahamas Ocean sands

Though you would be forgiven for thinking this picture a work of abstract art, it is actually a photograph of the Bahamas Ocean Sands captured by the Earth-orbiting Landsat 7 satellite.

Ocean currents in the Bahamas made the sand-and-seaweed sculpture in much the same way that winds create sand dunes in the Sahara.

NASA’s Earth Observatory has announced the ten most popular pictures of our home planet from its Image of the Day catalog, the culmination of a user-voted contest marking the tenth anniversary of the observatory’s Web site.

From “The best pictures of Earth: Reader pics of NASA Shots” Gallery, NationalGeographic.com

For full gallery, click HERE

Baby blue whale video

A baby blue whale filmed off Costa Rica may be the first to have been photographed underwater and adds to evidence that a blue whale hot spot in the Pacific Ocean is a birthing ground for the endangered species.

During a January 2008 expedition to the “Dome”—a warm-water region that draws blue whales from hundreds of miles away—the researchers had begun to lose hope of finding a calf. Then two telltale spouts began erupting at the sea surface.

“Oh, tell me that one of them is a small blow, please,” Bruce Mate, of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, says in the documentary.

One of the spouts did turn out to be that of a calf, which approached the research boat—surprising the scientists, given blue whale mothers’ protective reputations.

A photographer and videographer dived in and soon had the visual evidence needed to identify the whale as a baby blue.

From National Geographic. Full article and video HERE

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