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The Deep
Hobnail
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
If I have anything like a dream, it would be to get blasted off into space to observe alien life. Failing that, I would like to sink 3000m below sea-level.
The abyssal zone of our oceans represents something that a lot of people think we've lost, or exists beyond our planet. A frontier. Lots of us have seen pictures or videos of the "elbow squid" (If not, link). The big fin squid is rare, in the sense that we know not much about it and we've only seen them a handful of times. The fact that a commercial ROV can get such good footage, essentially randomly, of such an elusive creature suggests an enormous opportunity for discovery.
And discoveries have already been made. In the late 70's, the famous submarine with unfortunate irritating rodent connotations ALVIN was successfully used to directly observe hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor that had previously been detected by more remote means. The scientists on board expected an extremely hot, high saline, high toxicity enviroment. This they found, but what they didn't expect was the abundance of life in those conditions. (Note the crabs and various other little scuttling things in the lower left and middle right)
They found worms not unlike those in the picture. Subsequent dives to the original site in the East Pacific and others around the world confirmed the presence of crustaceans, molluscs and vertebrates as well. The picture above gives a poor sense of scale, but some species of rift worms grow as long as a man! This is not a colony of extremophile bacteria subsisting in a nuclear reactor or some hellish sulfur pool, but thriving complex life.
Life endemic to hydrothermal vent systems exists without the one common factor that biologists had thought was essential to all life on Earth, energy from the sun. Bacteria that process the raw minerals being spewed out by the vents form the foundation of the food web for these types of ecosystems. Hydrothermal vent creatures are almost utterly divorced from photosynthesis. If the sun were to switch off today, life in the Mariana trench would take a long time to notice, if it ever did.
So! In this thread we speak of life in impossible places, the wonders beneath the black parts of the ocean, and how this all makes a person think about the chances of life in a cold part of space, far from a star.
Oh, also, good references! My favourite book on the topic is "Deep Atlantic" by Richard Ellis, I reccomend it to anyone with even a cursory interest, either in biology or history, as he spends a lot of time on exploration as well.
R.I.P Science Thread
The abyssal zone of our oceans represents something that a lot of people think we've lost, or exists beyond our planet. A frontier. Lots of us have seen pictures or videos of the "elbow squid" (If not, link). The big fin squid is rare, in the sense that we know not much about it and we've only seen them a handful of times. The fact that a commercial ROV can get such good footage, essentially randomly, of such an elusive creature suggests an enormous opportunity for discovery.
And discoveries have already been made. In the late 70's, the famous submarine with unfortunate irritating rodent connotations ALVIN was successfully used to directly observe hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor that had previously been detected by more remote means. The scientists on board expected an extremely hot, high saline, high toxicity enviroment. This they found, but what they didn't expect was the abundance of life in those conditions. (Note the crabs and various other little scuttling things in the lower left and middle right)
They found worms not unlike those in the picture. Subsequent dives to the original site in the East Pacific and others around the world confirmed the presence of crustaceans, molluscs and vertebrates as well. The picture above gives a poor sense of scale, but some species of rift worms grow as long as a man! This is not a colony of extremophile bacteria subsisting in a nuclear reactor or some hellish sulfur pool, but thriving complex life.
Life endemic to hydrothermal vent systems exists without the one common factor that biologists had thought was essential to all life on Earth, energy from the sun. Bacteria that process the raw minerals being spewed out by the vents form the foundation of the food web for these types of ecosystems. Hydrothermal vent creatures are almost utterly divorced from photosynthesis. If the sun were to switch off today, life in the Mariana trench would take a long time to notice, if it ever did.
So! In this thread we speak of life in impossible places, the wonders beneath the black parts of the ocean, and how this all makes a person think about the chances of life in a cold part of space, far from a star.
Oh, also, good references! My favourite book on the topic is "Deep Atlantic" by Richard Ellis, I reccomend it to anyone with even a cursory interest, either in biology or history, as he spends a lot of time on exploration as well.
R.I.P Science Thread
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I will definitely check out the Ellis book, as a couple of coworkers who've done deep submergence research have made me interested in the subject.
And don't forget JASON and all of the other nifty NOAA research submersibles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS0ywe5DUCU
Not all whales are dealt with by the Oregon Highway Division. Most of them just die out in the ocean and then sink to the bottom. This represents an unimaginably huge explosion of nutrients in a place where most of the creatures survive on the constant "snow" of dying microorganisms and the shreds of fish that fall out of the mouths of larger fish.
So when a whale shows up on the ocean floor, the party starts. Most of the flesh is stripped away within months by larger scavengers like goblin sharks and hagfish. What they don't get, the omnipresent abyssal worms do. And after the meat is all gone, the bones can stick around and support a much smaller set of deep-sea critters for up to half a century!
If you're not feeling squeamish this morning, click this spoiler and watch a video of a whale getting devoured over the course of a year and a half. It's pretty neat!
the abyss
EDIT: ^5 Langly
I love the ocean and am pretty much ok with everything in it
Except for jellyfish
Fuck jellyfish
as someone constantly surrounded by the ocean, i have to say it is terrifying and i fear for my life at all times
i was bummed as a kid because cpl hicks was the bad dude in it
hicks is the man
It had a bit on jellyfish, including a giant jellyfish that ate other jellyfish.
And the coolest bit was the part about sea life under the Antarctic ice. The water is like -2 C but somehow this stuff is alive. They had to speed up the footage 500x so you could see these starfish and sea worms crawl around. Then they showed it all swarming to eat a dead seal. Awesome.
Jellyfish are also my prime fear re: ocean life.
Also whales. The idea of a blue whale being near me... I seriously have shaky hands right now just thinking about that.
I want to see some abyssal worms
Man this was my experience as well. I was sure he was going to save everyone and be great. Instead his mustache made him a bad guy.
Someone post awesome creepy deep-sea creatures
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The first link is to a short video about the guy, the second link is to a Radio Lab interview. You want to start the interview at about 51 minutes in.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/16/leopard-seal-teaches.html
http://mediasearch.wnyc.org/m/28301783/animal-minds.htm#q=leopard+seal&seek=3125.879
Long-Distance Larvae Speed to New Undersea Vent Homes
I love the romance of the manned subs, but I'm scared they'll all get replaced with ROV's. Well not scared, because I know a lot more will get done with ROV's, but you know. Romance.
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We're trying pretty hard to find life out there when there's obviously insane amounts of living stuff down there, right here on earth, that we don't know.
Bizarro Hicks
Remember, all these creatures live in total darkness. If only a person could just float weightless in a sea of little blue lights.
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And yet I'm very drawn to it.
Yes I'd say it's a true thing to say so long as you just mean cartography. And you also just mean cartography of the Moon and Mars. It's a true-ish thing to say.
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It's like some sort of awful deep sea sex act.
the ocean, or have a bunch of dead dork
win/win!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfu16P5dQo8
Learn English.
what I meant was kill all dorks
Extremely, I think. The ridiculously shaky-cam does not help it's authenticity.
These ones had RIDICULOUSLY long...tendril....things and they didn't give a fuck that they were gettin all knotted and tangled up, it was weeeeird
Most of the bioluminescent animals that are permanently below 2000m are generally quite wee. I believe that species of anglerfish I posted is smaller than your palm.
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